35th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts: From the void came gifts of the cosmos
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35th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts, MGLC Grad Tivoli. Mohammad Omar Khalil and Abed Al Kadiri, Common Ground, 2023, prints, drawing and archives. Photo: Jaka Babnik. MGLC Archive.
35th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts, MGLC Grad Tivoli. noks collective, In the End We Decided Not to Give Up, 2023, light art installation. Photo: Jaka Babnik. MGLC Archive.
35th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts
From the void came gifts of the cosmos
September 15, 2023 – January 14, 2024
Artistic Director: Ibrahim Mahama
Curators: Exit Frame Collective, Alicia Knock, Selom Koffi Kudjie, Inga Lāce, Beya Othmani, Patrick Nii Okanta Ankrah
35th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts, MGLC Grad Tivoli. School of Mutants, I Am My Own Sun, 2023, installation. Photo: Jaka Babnik. MGLC Archive.
35th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts, Cukrarna. Tjaša Rener, The Place We Call Home, 2023, installation. Photo: Jaka Babnik. MGLC Archive.
The 35th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts explores the ecosystem of connections, solidarities and histories of resistance that emerge from the once close post-independence relations between Ghana and the former Yugoslavia. With its main exhibition spanning various venues around the city of Ljubljana, it features the work of more than 50 artists drawn from the pool of connections between contemporary art and printmaking in the fields of architecture, design, agriculture and botany.
35th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts, Cukrarna. Max Cegielski and Janek Simon, One Man Does Not Rule a Nation, 2023, installation. Photo: Jaka Babnik. MGLC Archive.
35th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts, Cukrarna. Jihan El Tahri, Threading Solidarity, 2023, installation. Photo: Jaka Babnik. MGLC Archive.
From the void came gifts of the cosmos reflects on the entanglements of built environments, infrastructures and materials with the modern histories of anti-colonial and anti-imperial struggle, nationalism, internationalism and their contemporary echoes.
35th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts, Cukrarna. Installation view. Photo: Jaka Babnik. MGLC Archive.
35th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts, Cukrarna. Sonia Kacem, Hotel Hodnik, 2023, wallpaper prints and lithographs. Photo: Jaka Babnik. MGLC Archive.
The curators synchronously imagine the Biennale as a void and a site of potential, but also as an ecosystem of friendships and solidarities, unearthed histories of resistance, liberation and transnational relations beyond the centre-periphery framework that holds the possibility of transforming the void into gifts of the cosmos. The void, in this context, suffices as an egalitarian framework out of which multiplicities emerge, while also operating as a site of artistic indeterminacy in the spirit of inclusion.
35th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts, Cukrarna. Tejswini Narayan Sonawane, Femininity, 2015, woodcut print on cloth. Photo: Jaka Babnik. MGLC Archive.
35th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts, Cukrarna. Yussif Musah, The World Was Silent When We Died, 2023, mural drawing. Photo: Jaka Babnik. MGLC Archive.
35th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts, Cukrarna. Nonument Group, An Open Archive of What is to Come, 2023, installation. Photo: Jaka Babnik. MGLC Archive.
