Artist Talk: Paris Furst about the collaborated project 'Voglio Andare alla Biennale (I want to go to the Biennial)'

Presentation and talk with Paris Furst on the 4th of November at 7pm in the Seminar room of the Edith-Russ-Haus for Media Art.

The entry is free, the presentation and talk will be in german and in english language.Visitors to the 56th Venice Biennale (“All the World’s Futures” curated by Okwui Enwezor) will have noticed the ubiquitous presence of street merchants surrounding the gated sites of the exhibition. These new merchants of Venice, ever present with their selfie sticks, roses, umbrellas, toys, and sunglasses, surround but cannot penetrate the white walls of the Biennial’s critical discourse, including artist projects that claim to analyse the very conditions of their existence. Tickets cost twenty-five euros, an impossible price for the itinerant vendors. We are in an era when capital moves everywhere, bodies are turned away at borders, and language becomes a weapon for survival. The audio installation, Voglio Andare alla Biennale (I want to go to the Biennial), is the story of “Narshingdi,” a selfie-stick seller who tells the story of a life on the move, across continents, in and out of legality, finally striving back towards an idea of home from a foreign shore.  

For this talk, the project is translated and subtitled in German and English, and the discussion will follow the origins of the project within the context of the exterior of the Venice Biennial (http://voglioandare.org), as well as the project's reception in Venice within the Bangladeshi community and as part of the Nationless Pavilion (http://www.nation25.com/vuoto). 

The sound installation, Voglio andare alla Biennale (I want to go to the Biennial)
2015, is a collaborative project by Naeem Mohaiemen and Paris Furst.

Naeem Mohaiemenwill be present in the next exhibitionThe Fevered Specters of Art - Die fiebrigen Gespenster der Kunst.

Paris Helene Furst studied political science, art, and philosophy in North Carolina, Paris, Vienna and Berlin. Using documentary research methods in collective public projects, her work explores language, nationhood, and movements relating to the conflation of belief and knowledge. Recent projects include a community mapping on Elephantine Island in Egypt, and recordings of individual histories of migration between Europe and former colonies in Africa and South America.

Naeem Mohaiemen combines films, photography, and research essays to explore borders, wars, and belonging within South Asia’s postcolonial markers. From 2001-2006, Naeem was a member of Visible Collective (disappearedinamerica.org).His work was shown at Berlinale, Oberhausen, Muffathalle / Munich, Transmediale / Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Kunsthalle Basel, Museum of Modern Art / New York, and the Venice, Marrakech and Sharjah Biennials. He is also a Ph.D. candidate in Historical Anthropology at Columbia University.