Art as a form of world-making
On Friday June 12, the Biennale opens at GAMPA Pardubice
Alex Sihelsk* – Zveromedze (film still, 2025)
The City Gallery Pardubice (GAMPA) will host the opening of the second part of the biennale exhibition on Friday, June 12. A guided tour led by curators František Fekete and Jakub Gawkowski, and participating artists will explore this distinct section of the biennale, which presents speculative visions of the future, ranging from male pregnancy to a pastoral utopia. To wrap up the evening, there will be a performance by artist and DJ Seba Kayan, who blends the sonic influences of her European and Kurdish roots.
Margaret Raspé – Kontinuum © Courtesy of the estate of Margaret Raspé and Galerie Molitor, Berlin
The exhibition at GAMPA Pardubice is an integral part of the biennial as a whole, while expressing a singular idea of art as a form of world-making. Here, visions of the future are explored through social, political, and artistic imagination, featuring the works of artists Ștefan Bertalan, Cezary Bodzianowski, András Cséfalvay, Nosrat Karimi, Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven, Běla Kolářová, Isadora Neves Marques, Margaret Raspé, Alex Sihelsk*, Fedir Tetyanych, and Liliana Zeic. The exhibition runs until September 26, 2026.
Isadora Neves Marques – The Ovary (film still, 2021)
Alex Sihelsk* film is based on ideas about a society of the future run on solar energy, where different animal species understand one another. In the film, we follow the character of a queer herdswoman who wanders the landscape with her flock, inducing a holistic spiritual vision through which she then understands how to use energy resources in a sustainable manner. Ștefan Bertalan was one of the most significant figures of the Romanian neo-avant-garde. His art focuses on research and process, with nature as its central theme. The photographs exhibited in GAMPA document the development of a bean plant from a seed to a grown plant–a metaphor for human existence.
Liliana Zeic – Benefits of BDSM for Trauma Survivors © Courtesy of the artist and the gallery lokal_30, Warsaw
Fedir Tetyanych was a visionary artist who worked across painting, sculpture, and performance. He was influenced by cosmism, cybernetics, rural Ukrainian traditions, and ecology. Born in 1942 in Kniazhychi near Kyiv, used ideas from science fiction and scientific research as well as Ukrainian folk traditions, cosmologies, and history. Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven has been a pioneer of computer and media art since the 1970s. She reflects on science’s constant search for proof of things that researchers are convinced exist. The series of paintings presented in the biennale is inspired by George Boole–the mathematician who invented Boolean algebra, the system of true and false that became the basis of modern computing and artificial intelligence.