Image: Courtesy the artist, Bɔ́ Bɛtɔk. Photo: Kene Nwatu
EVA International – Ireland’s Biennial of Contemporary Art – is delighted to announce details of its 39th edition, opening on the 4th of September and continuing until the 15th November 2020.
Courtesy the artist, Bɔ́ Bɛtɔk. Photo: Kene Nwatu
The 39th EVA International will present a Guest Programme curated by Istanbul-based curator Merve Elveren, in addition to new commissions, performances, screenings, and educational events that will take place across Limerick and beyond. Taking its starting reference from the ‘Golden Vein’ – the 19th century promotional descriptor for the Limerick region – the biennial programme will connect to issues of environmental and territorial politics that have come into force with increasing urgency in recent years, both in Ireland and internationally.
Programme Highlights include:
Little did they know
Guest Programme curated by Merve Elveren
The Guest Programme of the 39th EVA International will feature over 30 artworks compassed by 4 research-based projects:
- Betsy Damon Archive: Keepers of the Waters (Chengdu and Lhasa), by Asia Art Archive;
- Derry Film and Video Workshop, by curator Sara Greavu in collaboration with artist Ciara Phillips;
- Sexuality of A Nation: Lionel Soukaz and Liberation Politics, by writer, curator and lecturer Paul Clinton;
- The Reconciliation of the Blood Feuds Campaign, 1990-1991, by curator and researcher Erëmirë Krasniqi (Oral History Initiative).
Describing the approach to the Guest Programme, Merve Elveren says: “From belonging to displacement, desire to memory, uncertainty to disaster, Little did they know, traces the changing connotations of land in recent history. It aims to bring together the forgotten –or overlooked– moments and attempts of collectivity from periods of transition that continue to resonate in the present. To this end, Little did they know proposes to build an exercising ground that overcomes the limits of time and place. It also attempts to constitute a visual archive for interactions between research-based projects and artistic responses as unlikely but timely interlocutors.”
Em’kal Eyongakpa
A new work by Em’kal Eyongakpa, developed through a commissioning partnership with IMMA, that will connect across sites in Dublin and Limerick. The artist will produce an ambitious new work that continues his interests in indigenous knowledge systems, ethnobotany and technology, following his recent presentations at the Jakarta Biennale and the 13th Sharjah Biennial in 2017.
Orla Barry
A new off-site work by artist Orla Barry, in collaboration with musician and composer Paul Bradley, developed through a commissioning partnership with Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture, addressing the artist’s ongoing interests in agriculture, animality, and language. As part of the 39th EVA International. Orla Barry will also present SPIN, SPIN, SCHEHERAZADE, a performance and sound installation featuring Einat Tuchman, co-commissioned with Mu.ZEE, Ostend, Belgium.
Anca Benera & Arnold Estefan
A new video installation work by Anca Benera and Arnold Estefan that interweaves factual and fictional histories of synthetic diamond production that connects the Shannon Free Zone with the deep sea data, mineral corporations and economic espionage in the former Eastern Bloc. The commission is being developed as part of EVA’s participation in the Magic Carpets Creative Europe Programme.
Bora Baboci
A new work by Bora Baboci based on the artists’ script for a speculative and fictional weather forecast for the Curragower Falls – a section of the River Shannon that intersects Limerick city. The commission is being developed as part of EVA’s participation in the Magic Carpets Creative Europe Programme.
Laura Fitzgerald, Áine McBride, Emily McFarland, Eimear Walshe
New works developed as part of the Platform Commissions programme (selected by Anne Tallentire and Merve Elveren) addressing ideas of environmentalism, land use, and housing activism.
