Umbrales – Thresholds. Design and ©: Santiago da Silva, Cecilia Brena

Umbrales

12 Nov 2021 - 20 Feb 2022

Tue – Sun: 12 – 18. The entrance is free.

ifa Gallery Stuttgart
Charlottenplatz 17
70173 Stuttgart

Thresholds.
How To Tie Time Together?

Umbrales. ¿Cómo anudar el tiempo?

What should a social order look like that seeks answers to the pressing issues facing society today? Which codes and focal points come together to form the social network of our time? How can art and culture contribute to a better understanding of the effects of human actions on the fragile ecosystem?

Within the scope of 15 bienal de artes mediales (media art biennale₁) in Santiago de Chile, the exhibition 'Umbrales –Thresholds' explores the transformation, insecurity and vulnerability of societies in times of multiple planetary crises. Being at the threshold means being in an intermediate state, in uncertainty, the unknown and unconscious, and also in a moment of change.

This joint project takes as its starting point the wave of protests against the government in Chile that began in October 2019. The country's deep and interlinked social and ecological crises are made evident. The protests resulted in the constitution of Chile, which still derived from the time of the Pinochet dictatorship, being rewritten – in a participative process that will be completed in 2023.
Questions concerning ecological sensitivity, the recognition of a diversity of cultures and languages, gender equality, and the socio-technological nature of living environments are not only relevant in Chile. They all represent themes that require the reorganisation of different social orders around the world.

How To Tie Time Together?

– poses the question as to how entering into relationships with one another and finding orientation and contact in space and time. The exhibition sees itself as an invitation to sharpen the senses and sensitivity at a time of insecurity – to observe attentively, to listen and feel, and also to dream, imagine and remember, and to understand oneself as part of a complex constellation of interdependent relationships.

The exhibition is accompanied by an online publication that will accrue over the exhibition period, continuing the gathering of fragments, observations, thoughts, discussions, and shared exploration in a digital space.

Curators: Bettina Korintenberg, Enrique Rivera
Artists: Elisa Balmaceda mit Rodrigo Ríos Zunino, Claudia González Godoy, Barbara Marcel, Elektra Wagenrad
Curator film programme: Florian Wüst
Project coordination and management: Constanza Güell

_11:The 15 bienal de artes mediales, Santiago de Chile takes place from 26.11.2021 – 31.03.2022. www.bienaldeartesmediales.cl

The Artistic Work

The three new multimedia installations by the Chilean artists Elisa Balmaceda (born 1985) and Claudia González (born 1983) and the Brazilian artist Barbara Marcel (born 1985) look at various threshold moments: the protests on the streets in Chile, the landscapes and people exhausted by exploitation and industrialisation, the ruins and remnants of a modernised and accelerated world. A sense of interconnectedness is at the centre of these works, a feeling that makes the entanglements of life tangible. Beginning with these symbiotic nodes, these works explore a myriad of opportunities to create connections by means of and yet also in particular by going beyond human languages. In all of this, different forms of knowledge and old and new technologies intermingle and open up a new understanding of ourselves within the contexts of our lives.

In a transcultural series of film screenings, film curator Florian Wüst questions and illustrates the present social upheavals in Chile, adding the audio-visual medium of film to the context of the exhibition. He includes in this the long-term temporal dimension of history and memory and how these help us to comprehend current developments – in constellations of the here and now, Chile's specific history, and an overarching narrative of revolution and its social traces and effects, as in Johannes Gierlinger's film 'Die vergangenen Zukünfte' ('The Past Futures') of 2021 that builds bridges between Chile and German-speaking Europe. The medium of film is included here as an aesthetic and substantive lens that illustrates socio-economic processes within the exhibition's project of reflection.

Programme

Thursday, 11 November 2021: Exhibition opening

19.00 – 21.00: Opening of the exhibition.

Opening ceremony with a live music broadcast by Los Chinganeros from the bosquemuseo (forest museum) on Cerró Calán, Santiago de Chile.
The artists and curators will be present.

Impressions

ifa Galleries

The ifa Galleries in Stuttgart and Berlin present contemporary art from a global point of view. The work of the ifa Galleries is based on seeing the world from a diversity and plurality of perspectives, discovering new stories, and shaping emancipatory processes, interactions, and artistic spaces. Our focus is on long-term relationships with artists, partners, and visitors, and our exhibitions and education programmes are developed through practices of collaboration that trace global entanglements and piece them together in new forms of narrative.

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