Biennials as Sites of Historical Narration. Thinking through Goteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art

The ways in which history is narrated is a highly debated subject-not least in relation to the anti-racist, environmental, and gender struggles defining the contemporary moment. This book explores how artists and curators evoke the past as a part of the present within the framework of contemporary art biennials. Can the nonlinear and poly vocal form of the art biennial-distinctly different from that of historical museums and academia-provide an experimental testing ground for publicly processing the past and reimagining the future?

Conceived as a resource for the fields of art and exhibition studies, as well as for readers interested in history and social change, the book includes reflections on artistic and curatorial strategies, from Lagos to Prishtina and from Venice to Gwangju. The 2019 and 2021 editions of the Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art are featured as case-studies opening up for a wider discussion about the relationship between art and the production of historical consciousness.

Texts by Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, Michael Barrett, Oyindamola Fakeye & Tosin Oshinowo, Natasha Ginwala, Ayesha Hameed, HAMN (Nasim Aghili & Malin Holgersson), Rebecka Katz Thor, Kooperative für Darstellungspolitik, Oskar Laurin, Jonas (J) Magnusson & Cecilia Grönberg, Cuauhtémoc Medina, Sofía Gallísa Muriente & Marina Reyes Franco, Rasheedah Phillips, Lisa Rosendahl, Lena Sawyer & Nana Osei-Kofi, and Joanna Warsza