The Venice Biennale is one of the most prominent contemporary art events, drawing professionals in the field of arts from all over the world. During the Biennale, Venice will serve as a vibrant meeting place for diverse professionals in the arts sector. The University of the Arts Helsinki (Uniarts Helsinki) contributes to the event in an important way by hosting the third-ever Research Pavilion in the Biennale’s context.

The Research Pavilion, hosted by Uniarts Helsinki, will be organised for the third time this year.
The Research Pavilion brings artistic research and important global themes to the forefront in Venice. For example, the project Traces from the Anthropocene examines soil contamination and mass animal deaths, while Disruptive Processes highlights the ethics and politics of gathering. The Korean group’s Shelters delves into disaster shelters and the concept of home. Cemetery Archipelago deals with migration and death. Read more about all the projects and events here.

The entire project is motivated by the diversity of artistic research and its open relationship with contemporary art, says one of the conveners of the project professor Mika Elo from Uniarts Helsinki:

“We highlight a range of voices and offer critical perspectives. The partners and individuals in this project are very diverse, and they all have their own unique goals. We have been working as a networked group for already a year. In Venice, we’re presenting only a fraction of our work.”

The other convener, professor and curator Henk Slager adds: “This continous project actually challenges artistic research to articulate idiosyncratic modes of representation and reflection addressing the present global environmental crisis, while taking historical responsibilities into account and creating provoking interconnections between research practices and their environments—in short: it articulates research ecologies that could become decisive for the current state and direction of the artistic research discourse.”

The Research Pavilion is situated in the Sala del Camino on Giudecca. It’s within an easy reach for visitors to stop by and learn about the projects and even have a discussion with the artist-researchers involved. They will be on site between 10am and noon every day when the Pavilion is open.

The opening of the Research Pavilion will be held on Wednesday, May 8, 2019 at 5:30–8:30pm. The Pavilion will be opened by Nasima Razmyar, Deputy Mayor for Culture and Leisure from the City of Helsinki. The programme for the evening includes a concert-installation by Electronic Chamber Music.

Electronic Chamber Music is not just a regular band but also a research project. They will be exploring the bodily nature of playing music, that is, which physical expressions are associated with playing and what they could perhaps be like.

The Research Pavilion is an ongoing project created and hosted by Uniarts Helsinki. Research Pavilion #3 is created in cooperation with the Louise and Göran Ehrnrooth Foundation and international partner institutions: Aalto University, Valand Academy of Arts at the University of Gothenburg, University of Applied Arts Vienna, and Interlab Hongik University Seoul.

Hours: 10am–6pm. Moderated hours 10am–noon. Closed Tuesdays.

See the full programme here. Free admission.