The program e-Dialogues arises from the need to rethink of a way of reaching our audiences in an online format, transforming it into a space of meeting and debate, in the fields of visual arts, architecture, cinema and literature. The corresponding sessions will take place weekly until July and resume again in September until December 2020, with a chance of extending beyond this date. The contents will be related to the discourses and narratives that put the East and the West in contact with each other, in the framework of those cultures that identify with the geographical differences of the global world.

In this sixth session of the program e-Dialogues, we count on the participation of Brook Andrew (Sydney, 1970), known for reinterpreting the modernist and the colonialist history of Australia and for presenting the alternatives perspectives of the conventional art system. He is the first Indigenous artistic director of the Biennale of Sydney (the 22nd Edition) and is considered as one of the Aboriginal provocateurs in the world of contemporary Australian art. His discourse takes a stand on gender, sexuality, race and the environment. But it also adopts a critical attitude with respect to the evolution of the Biennales over the last decade, while still claiming its interest on the condition that they adapt to the current artistic practices and become radicalized.

This session will be in English.

In 2014, Brook Andrew worked with the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, the Museo de América and the Museo Nacional de Antropología (Madrid) for the project Really Useful Knowledge in the MNCARS to carry out the immersive installation A Solid Memory of the Forgotten Plains of Our Trash and Obsessions. Amongst other significant projects, he curated the exhibition TABOO in 2012/2013 in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, creating a dialogue between contemporary international art and Aboriginal art. Through his research Representation, Remembrance and the Memorial, he has addressed the memorialization of Aboriginal loss and the Frontier Wars in Australia. He has been a resident artist in the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin (July 2017 – June 2018) and holds research positions at both, the University of Melbourne and Monash University. He is also an Enterprise Professor, Faculty of Fine Arts and Music & Honorary Senior Fellow, Indigenous Studies Unit and the School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, Australia; Associate Professor & Associate Researcher Wominjeka Djeembana Indigenous Research Lab. MADA Monash University, AUSTRALIA; DPhil candidate, Ruskin School of Art, Oxford University & Associate Researcher, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, UK.

NIRIN is the title of the 22nd Biennale of Sydney 2020 directed by Brook and, in which he has brought together the work of 110 international artists. In this dialogue, he will talk of the precursors of his project and the discourse that has allowed him to articulate the exhibited works. As Rosana Paulino says it best, “NIRIN represents something like a spider’s web that connects people and ideas. It is the border through which things stay attached. It is not about a hierarchy of ideas, but rather about being together. There is no centre or periphery, it’s like being in a digital cloud where everything is together.”

This event has been posible thanks to the collaboration of the research group AGI Art Globalization and Interculturality of the University of Barcelona, “Archivo ARES. Estéticas, identidades y practicas audiovisuales en España”, the MICIU Project of I+D+i,EShID and the research group “VIS@LS: Cultura Visual y Políticas de Identidad” of the University of Castilla – La Mancha; the Vice Rectorate of Culture of the University of Málaga (UMA), the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya (UIC-Barcelona) and VIDEOTAGE-CONTENT LAB from Hong Kong.

Speakers:
Brook Andrew, Artistic Director of the 22nd Biennale of Sydney.
Menene Gras Balaguer, Culture and Exhibitions Director of Casa Asia.

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