8th THESSALONIKI BIENNALE OF CONTEMPORARY ART
December 10, 2022 – May 21, 2023
Broad theme: Geocultura
Main exhibition: Being as Communion
Main exhibition curator: Maria Thalia Carras
Geocultura is the broad theme running through the programme of the 8th edition of the Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art. The concept of geocultura associates the cultivation of land and culture, as a set of resources, texts and practices available to humankind, that allow us to understand the world and act in it.
The pairing of the terms "geo-" and "culture" evokes the Latin origin of the word, cultura, which derives from the verb colere ("to cultivate"), as well as the original semantic connection between the cultivation of land and the cultivation of the mind, i.e., education and culture. Perhaps the demands of the modern world are urging us to rediscover that lost thread connecting land and culture.
Due to the state of permanent precariousness we experience, we have come to consider this succession of crises that we have to adapt to in order to survive, as the new normal. The climate crisis, combined with the economic and refugee crises, turn our attention to that original connection with the land, the management of natural resources and the economic systems we use to organize production, distribution, consumption and profitability. The recent shift from conventional to organic farming, aimed at protecting biodiversity and the ecological balance, offers hope for the future, as well as an extremely promising reservoir of principles and practices that could allow the radical transformation of the relationships among the species coexisting on our planet.
The Biennale, directed by Thouli Misirloglou, will take place from December 10, 2022 until May 21, 2023 in museums and other venues across the city.
Athens-based contemporary art curator Maria-Thalia Carras will curate the main exhibition of the 8th Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, titled "Being as Communion".
Carras' curatorial work focuses on the relationship between art, ecology and communities, and on the politics of public space.
In 2004 Carras co-founded the nomadic non-profit arts organization locus athens, which has been curating exhibitions, talks, screenings and educational programs, with an emphasis on the production of new artworks for Athens’s public space. In 2018 she co-curated Geometries, a large-scale exhibition with a parallel public program hosted at the Agricultural University of Athens. In 2019, she was a founding member of project space TAVROS, situated in the Athenian suburb of the same name, wanting to establish a new arts institution that would promote creative collaborations and serve as a hub for various micro-communities, always researching key political and social issues. She has also worked as a film producer – she produced, for example, Naeem Mohaiemen's Tripoli Cancelled (shortlisted for the Turner Prize 2018), Didem Pekün's Araf (Sarajevo Festival Human Rights Award 2019) and Disturbed Earth (2021), also directed by Pekün. In 2021 she served as a member of the jury of the 23rd Thessaloniki Documentary Festival.
The artists’ list and the Biennale’s programme will be announced.
The Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art is financed by Greece and the European Union (European Regional Development Fund) is organised by MOMus and implemented by MOMus-Museum of Contemporary Art-Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art and State Museum of Contemporary Art Collections.