The Goethe-Institut is a supporter of the Karachi Biennale since its beginnings in 2017. For the 2nd edition “Flight Interrupted: Eco-leaks from the Invasion Desk” – focusing on ecological topics, we are supporting the artists Susanne Kriemann, Wolfgang Spahn, Folke Köbberling, REINIGUNGSGESELLSCHAFT, Sven Johne and the researcher Sacha Kagan from Germany.
The thematic for KB19 is inspired by ecological consequences of dense urbanization – “Flight Interrupted: Eco-leaks from the Invasion Desk”. The title invokes loss of species of low flying birds wiped out by vertical structures in Karachi that broke their free flight and marginalized life-cycles.
Venue: Bin Qasim Park and different venues
Date: 26th of October – 8th of November 2019
Inauguration ceremony: 26th of October, 5pm, Bin Qasim Park
(Inaugural event is by invitation only)
Keynote address by Sacha Kagan “Art in Response to Unsustainability”: 27th of October, 5pm, IBA City Campus
KB19 Participating Artists from Germany:
Folke Köbberling
Having studied Fine Art in Kassel, Germany, and later in Vancouver, Canada, Folke Köbberling has lectured at several universities, including the Art Center College of Design (Pasadena, USA), the University of Applied Arts (Vienna, Austria), Wayne State University (Michigan, USA), and the University of Arts (Berlin, Germany). Köbberling is a professor and the Head of the Institute for architectural related art at the Technical University of Brunswick. The artist is currently living in Berlin.
You can see the works of the artists in KB 19 at Bagh Ibn-e-Qasim.
Susanne Kriemann
Born in Erlangen, Germany, Susanne Kriemann is an artist and a professor at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design. Kriemann studied under Prof. Joseph Kosuth and Prof. Joan Jonas at the State Academy of Fine Arts (Stuttgart, Germany) in 1997. Later, she enrolled at the Programme de recherché at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts (Paris, France) in 2000. From 2013 to 2017, she was an advisor at the Van Eyck Academy (Maastricht, Netherlands).
Kriemann investigates the medium of photography within the context of social history and archival practice in her intensive, research based work. With an extended notion of the photographic document, she has investigates ideas on the world functioning as an analogue to photography, a “recording system” for ecological actions and activities caused by humankind. This has led to preoccupations with radioactivity and mining, as well as archaeology and landmarks in previous works.
The artist has created sixteen artist’s books since 1998. She has exhibited extensively around the world, including the cities of San Francisco, Vancouver, Paris, and Rotterdam. She has also taken part in several prestigious residency programs, including IASPIS (Stockholm, Sweden), Townhouse (Cairo, Egypt), and 21er Haus (Vienna, Austria).
Alongside artist and filmmaker Aleksander Komarov, Kriemann co-founded and currently runs the artist-run initiative AIR Berlin Alexanderplatz. She lives and works in Berlin and Karlsruhe.
You can see the works of the artist in KB 19 at Bagh Ibn-e-Qasim.
REINIGUNGSGESELLSCHAFT
Formed by visual artists Martin Keil and Henrik Mayer, the project group REINIGUNGSGESELLSCHAFT investigates the position of contemporary art within social and societal activity. Based in Berlin, Germany, the artists collaborate with an extensive variety of partners from different backgrounds, realizing social change through artistic dialogue and intervention.
Keil and Mayer established the group during their studies at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts. Since then, they have taken part in several projects in Europe, Asia and the United States. They have exhibited their work at museums and galleries all around the world. They have also participated in various Biennales, including Prague in the Czech Republic, Odessa in Ukraine, and Sinop in Turkey.
The pair initiated a permanent, public art project in Perth, Australia, where new names for twenty three streets in the city of Vincent were created; in order to assist the local inhabitants express their concerns in relation to urban life, ecology and social justice.
You can see the works of the artists in KB 19 at Bagh Ibn-e-Qasim.
Sven Johne
Born in Bergen, Germany, Sven Johne studied photography under the esteemed Prof. Timm Rautert at the Academy of Visual Arts (Leipzig, Germany) in 1998, and achieved his Masters from the same institution in 2006. Johne has exhibited his work in prominent galleries and museums around the world, including the De Appel Foundation (Amsterdam, the Netherlands), Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art (Rotterdam, the Netherlands), Sprengel Museum (Hannover, Germany), Museum für Fotografie (Braunschweig, Germany), Berlinische Galerie (Berlin, Germany), and Kalmar Konstmuseum (Kalmar, Sweden). The artist has also participated in several Biennales including the Riga International Biennale of Contemporary Art (Latvia), Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie (Mannheim, Germany) and the B3 Biennale (Frankfurt, Germany). This year, his work will be displayed at the Karachi Biennale 2019 (Karachi, Pakistan), the Museum Villa Stuck (Munich, Germany), and the Noorderlicht International Photography Festival (Groningen, the Netherlands) amongst other platforms.
A recipient of the DAAD Scholarship, the artist was awarded the incentive prize of the Guenther-Peill-Foundation. He has also published seven monographs including 47 Faults Between Calais and Idomeni in 2018, and Anomalies of the Early 21st Century, Some Case Studies / Anomalien des frühen 21. Jahrhunderts. Einige Fallbeispiele in 2015.
You can see the works of the artists in KB 19 at Karachi Zoo.
Wolfgang Spahn
Wolfgang Spahn is a visual and sound artist, currently based in Berlin. His work includes interactive installations, performances of light and sound and miniature-slide-paintings. His art explores the field of analogue and digital media and focuses on both their contradiction and their correlation. Wolfgang Spahn was also part of the first Karachi Biennale.
You can see the works of the artists in KB 19 at Alliance Française de Karachi.
Sacha Kagan
Sacha Kagan has been researching at the intersection of the arts, culture(s) and sustainability for over one and a half decade. His work combines social sciences and humanities with arts-based research to reach for transdisciplinary hermeneutics. He has been a research associate at the Institute of Sociology and Cultural Organization (ISCO), Leuphana University Lüneburg (Germany) from 2005 to 2018; principal investigator at the research project The City as Space of Possibility from 2015 to 2018; Coordinator of the Research Network Sociology of the Arts at the European Sociological Association from 2015 to 2017; and founding coordinator of Cultura21 International – Cultural Fieldworks for Sustainability (an informal international network grown from the German NGO Cultura21) from 2007 to 2016. Kagan is the author of six dozen publications, including the book Art and Sustainability: Connecting Patterns for a Culture of Complexity (transcript Verlag, 2011), and of three documentary films. Dr. Kagan obtained a PhD at Leuphana University Lüneburg (Germany) in 2011, a MA in cultural economics and cultural entrepreneurship at Erasmus University Rotterdam (Netherlands) in 2004, graduated in political sociology at Sciences Po Bordeaux (France) in 2003, and in history at University Bordeaux 3 in 2000.
Back
