Yerevan Biennial 2020 (cancelled)

Yerevan Biennial 2020

A statement on the current crisis in the region
Launch events of the first Yerevan Biennial cancelled
October 1, 2020–January 17, 2021

In response to the current crisis originating in the Nagorno-Karabakh region and in respect of the victims of the conflict and their families, the Yerevan Biennial Art Foundation has decided to cancel the scheduled launch events of its Digital Biennial. We are mourning in particular civilian casualties.

In these tragic circumstances, after much discussion, we decided to unceremoniously make accessible to the public the first chapter of the 2020-2021 Yerevan Biennial. The Digital Biennial is now online. If only symbolically, it is important to be present and show our humanity. We strongly believe that art, culture, education, and heritage play a vital role in the life of a country. In fact, they express the very essence of a people, as well as their intellectual vitality and uniqueness. Without art, culture, education, and heritage, our collective and individual identity is lost and the logic of war prevails.

We hope to resume further activity as soon as possible. Meanwhile, we pray for the de-escalation of the conflict and safety of the people. As UN-Secretary, António Guterres, recently stated: “To silence the guns, we must raise the voices for peace.”

Yerevan, September 29, 2020

(We acknowledge that the situation is continuously evolving and circumstances might differ at the time of publication)

*

The Time Complex Manifesto

The time has come to decolonise time; to introduce new categories of time, new strategies of survival and ways to inhabit time; to give time a time and pace that are not measurable through conventional instruments.

A time that lives in a heartbeat and is faster than a 200 Mbps internet connection.
A time that is endless and perpetual.
A time of radicality and possibilities.
A time able to sabotage and subvert ideologies and power structures.
Thinking time: a time for reflection and meditation.
A time that interrogates and infiltrates fixated systems of knowledge.
A time that breathes attuned with the environment: the lost time of our ancestors.
A time that is queer, unpredictable, and eludes binary dichotomies.
A time where we learn from history, and we repeat only that that is worth repeating, not just the same atrocities and mistakes.
A time that is productive because it is creative.
A time that does not make of creativity a mere product.
A time of personal responsibility and self-determination.
A time that is an anarchic dimension full of surprises and poetry.
A time in which to rest and unwind and a time in which to focus and fight back.
A time in which everybody's life matters and is treasured, even more so if previously oppressed or subjected to violence.
A futurist time, a biological time, a digital time.
We are longing for that time.

Welcome to a new time.
Lorenzo Fusi
Artistic Director