Upcoming IBA Conversations (Early 2021)

With the completion of the first of our IBA Conversations, we are excited to reveal our future topics in this series set to take place during the first half of 2021. Be sure to check in on our website, subscribe to our newsletter and follow our social media outlets for information about speakers, dates, time and registration.

Solidarity, Care and Working with Communities (March)
By focusing on the themes of solidarity and care we intend to return to one of the most discussed themes of the 7th General Assembly by our members. The questions we want to pose to our invited speakers this theme raises go from how to make sure our institutions are supportive of those groups and communities too often under-represented, how to shape an institution as compassionate and caring, what opportunities and challenges the digital space offers in this respect and how we respond and react sensibly to the most current themes and discourses which might come to challenge our previous attitudes. The intention through these and other lines of enquiry is to stage a discussion which might start from the direct experiences of our invited guests and members but trigger the imagination of all others in developing new strategies and approaches.

The Artist as Initiator (April)
In the third of our IBAConversations we want to switch views to those of artists who in many cases have been involved as founders, co-founders or initiators in other ways of biennials the world over. We will ask our guests to guide us through their decision to initiate one to understand what prompted their decisions, which obstacles they found along the way, how the experience has impacted on their practice as artists and what the double role offers them.

How to Unlearn and How to Learn (May)
In a moment in which we are experiencing systemic changes at a global level, we are all asked to engage in an unlearning process and critically re-evaluate specific rhetoric, attitudes and approaches held in the past. Our guests this month will bring their experience from biennials across the world to give a sense of how we can deal with these topics through the discourses we select for an exhibition, also what the institutional responsibilities are and how the process of unlearning/re-learning can be built into our own daily strategies.

Biennials for the Local Audience (June)
The last topic we want to approach ventures into the most immediate surroundings of a biennial, so to say its neighbourhood. The two speakers, who have both developed institutions with strong ties to their local community, will be able to describe all the positive aspects but also the critical decisions made to foster local networks (of artists, producers, education professionals, etc.) through questions such as: what this implies in terms of widening the access to contemporary art and its languages, how or if the interaction between artists and local audiences have benefitted both, what chances this has offered to instigate processes of change at other institutional levels.

You may learn more about the conception and goals of IBA Conversations here.