carlier | gebauer

BIENNALE GHERDËINA 7 
08.08. – 20.10.2020

– a breath? a name? – the ways of worldmaking

The Zënza Sëida Cultural Association and the Biennale Gherdëina are proud to announce the inauguration of the 7th edition of the Biennale Gherdëina on Saturday, August 8th, 2020 across the public space of Ortisei, Val Gardena, in the picturesque landscape of the Dolomites, the celebrated UNESCO Heritage Site.

The Biennale Gherdëina with its focus on the public space as a stage for sculptural works and community-based, participatory projects, has always been perceived as a celebration of a unique place, its rich culture and a vivid local tradition. The circumstances of the forthcoming edition are particularly challenging. The pandemic crisis made us aware of the vulnerability of humans and nature. Resilience becomes a paramount urgency; the notions of shared responsibility and a humility as an ethical moderator of interpersonal relations gain a particular importance in an attempt to redefine the agencies of responsiveness and care. The Biennale Gherdëina 7th will reflect these concerns as challenges in the active processes of the world’s remaking. Here, the act of breathing (life) and the act of naming (recognition), as highlighted by this year’s Biennale title, constitute the framework of a political nature, the essentials of the “ecology of others”. As such, the Biennale Gherdëina 7th will celebrate the ethic of affirmation. In the words of the philosopher Rosi Braidotti: “we need to borrow the energy from the future to overturn the conditions of the present. It’s called love of the world. (…) Picture what you don’t have yet; anticipate what we want to become. We need to empower people to will, to want, to desire, a different world, to extract from the misery of the present joyful, positive, affirmative relations and practices. Ethics will guide affirmative politics”.