Closing Week of the 34th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts: ISKRA DELTA

Lawrence Lek, Nepenthe Zone (still), 2021. Courtesy of the artist.

34th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts
ISKRA DELTA
September 10, 2021 – November 21, 2021
https://34.bienale.si

The 34th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts: ISKRA DELTA will come to an end on Sunday, November 21. The closing week will feature the two-day international conference ISKRA DELTA, consisting of three parts – Being a Citizen of the World Today?, YUFU Conference and ISKRA DELTA talks. The conference will conclude with the announcement of the awards of the 34th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts. The closing weekend of the Biennale will feature presentations of projects by Aleksandra Domanović, Lawrence Lek, Marko Peljhan and the artist duo Nascent, and will end with the marathon guided tour on Sunday.

Being a Citizen of the World Today?
International conference
An important focus of the Biennale is its discursive programme, most of which will take place in the coming days. The international conference Being a Citizen of the World Today? as part of the Perennial Biennial project will be held on Thursday, November 18. Generally, cosmopolitanism is the ideology of the equality of all people, which assumes that all people are citizens of the world. Through the global interconnectedness of the contemporary world, and the spread of liberal capitalism, the idea of cosmopolitanism has grown and become ubiquitous, including in the field of contemporary art, where biennials and other large-scale cyclical exhibitions have become the main arena of liberal cosmopolitanism. Biennial cosmopolitanism has been linked above all to postcolonial discourse and universal humanist values: equal opportunities for all, solidarity, hospitality, human rights, critique of global capitalism. At the same time, the idea of cosmopolitanism has often been criticised as a cover for enabling and spreading the same global liberalism and capitalism.

Participants of the conference are Alia Swastika, Sami Al Daghistani, Aljoša Pužar, Mahret Ifeoma Kupka, Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker and Kostis Stafylakis.

The evening programme of the conference includes a screening of the film Shy Radicals, which features a portrait of the recipient of the Grand Prize of the 33rd Biennial of Graphic Arts, Hamja Ahsan, an artist, writer, activist and curator who lives and works in London and Maastricht.

YUFU Conference
International conference
In cooperation with Zavod Maska, the YUFU Conference will be held with the participation of Tibor Hrs Pandur, Dinko Kreho, Vera Mevorah, eurovicious, Enea Kavčič & Maks Valenčič and Mladen Zobec. The conference, which will take place on Friday, November 19, will focus on Yugofuturism following the example of other ethnofuturist movements such as Afrofuturism, Sinofuturism, Baltic Ethnofuturism and Hungarofuturism, which tactically empower peripheral identities and subversively affirm individual cultural curiosities.

ISKRA DELTA talks
Lectures by international speakers
On Friday, the programme will continue with the ISKRA DELTA talks. The panel will focus on world-building tools and practices for imagining, constructing, prototyping and enacting alternative present/futures. The talks by the international speakers will touch upon approaches and ideas in art, (speculative) design, architecture and (science) fiction, which are a source of inspiration behind the approach of this edition of the Biennale. The lectures by Bogna Konior, Kaja Kraner, Jen Kratochvil and Simon O’Sullivan will be followed by a short performative lecture and video projection of the Diffractions Collective. The discussion will be moderated by Tjaša Pogačar, the curator of the Biennale.

Announcement of awards and screening of videos by Kukla Kešerović
Friday evening, the day of the conference lectures, presentations and discussions, will conclude with the announcement of the awards of the 34th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts and social gathering with the screening of videos by Kukla Kešerović, a Slovenian music producer and film director. Members of the International jury, Lovro Japundžić, Jen Kratochvil, Sam Lackey and Poka-Yio, will decide about the recipient of the Grand Prize of the 34th Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts: ISKRA DELTA, the recipient of the Audience Award will also be announced. The presentation of awards has a long tradition and has been taking place since the first edition of the Biennale in 1955. The jury’s decision and justification will be presented on social media and on the Biennale website.

Closing weekend
On November 20, the programme includes the presentation of Aleksandra Domanović’s project Worldometers, which is also a kind of time capsule of a certain past era. This will be followed by a tour of the Nepenthe Zone, a video installation and sonic environment that makes the listener forget the troubles of the world, and a conversation with the artist Lawrence Lek. The Saturday programme will conclude with a conversation with the Slovenian artist Marko Peljhan.

The Biennale will conclude on November 21 with the presentation of the artist duo Nascent and their project Temporal Secession, which deals with an alternative infrastructure that aims to catalyse different experiences of time in their local area. Their presentation will be followed by the final marathon guided tour of ISKRA DELTA: The 34th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts with its assistant curator Lara Mejač.

Digital sound compilation ISKRA DELTA: Onboarding Soundscapes
With its broad genre concept, the Biennale goes beyond the field of visual art. Its curatorial approach has been expanded, for example, by a music programme developed in collaboration with the Nimaš Izbire collective. This brought forth the compilation ISKRA DELTA: Onboard Soundscapes, designed to accelerate the spillover of future soundscapes to our everyday reality.