Weather Report: Forecasting Future – Nordic Pavilion, Venice Art Biennale 2019

Place: Venice, Italy

Weather Report: Forecasting Future, installation view. Photo © Riccardo Bianchini / Inexhibit

Weather Report: Forecasting Future – The Nordic Pavilion, at the 58th Venice Art Biennale

At the Venice Art Biennale 2019, the Nordic Pavilion presents the exhibition Weather Report: Forecasting Future.
Curated by Leevi Haapala and Piia Oksanen and featuring site-specific works by Finnish duo nabbteeri, Norwegian Ane Graff, and Swedish Ingela Ihrman, the exhibition investigates the relations between the human and nonhumans in an age when climate change and mass extinctions are threatening the future of life on Earth.

By combining visual art with humanities and natural sciences, Weather Report: Forecasting Future provides a many-fold picture of how humans can renegotiate their relations with the environment and with other life forms.

“It is often difficult for humans to notice life forms that exist on a scale different from theirs, such as microscopic organisms, the slow workings of toxic agents, or durational processes of decaying organic matter. By heightening the visitors’ awareness of the materiality of the space and the artworks, and by assimilating their bodies to other life forms, the exhibition attempts to establish a connection with more-than-human agencies.
The biennial gardens are bordered by the Venetian Lagoon, a tourist-infested city, and hubs of mainland industry, all spurring contemplation of the eco-crisis, the erosion caused by centuries of mass tourism, and the survival prospects of marine species, native to the lagoon, which compete for space with massive cruise ships. The pavilion itself is susceptible to exterior conditions. Occasional high tides and changes in the weather expose the exhibition to unpredictable forces.”

Nabbteeri, Compost
In their works, artists’ collective nabbteeri typically begin by mapping the place where they are temporarily set up, gathering materials on site, and incorporating recycled objects into mesh-like installations based on interactions between the artists and other things, including nonhuman organisms and tiny life forms. Within the Nordic Pavilion premises, nabbteeri created Compost, a self-maintaining, life-producing ecosystem. Nonhuman life is maintained inside the building by garden waste and plant cuttings collected in the Giardini and stored in sand-filled containers.

Nabbteeri, Compost, installation views. Photos © Riccardo Bianchini / Inexhibit

Ane Graff, The States of Inflammation
Taking a cue from feminist new materialisms’ rethinking of material reality, Ane Graff creates installations that combine her material research with a broad range of research disciplines, such as microbiology and chemistry. The States of Inflammation, the work she presents in Venice, makes observable how the human body and its current inflammatory state are entangled with other agencies, such as bacteria, as well as the toxicity of the environment.

Ane Graff, The States of Inflammation, installation view. Photo © Riccardo Bianchini / Inexhibit

Ingela Ihrman, A great Seaweed Day
Ingela Ihrman‘s algae installation tells a story of the liquid origins of human bodies and the existing connections between different life forms. Consisting of silent, large-scale objects, the installation in Venice invites the Nordic Pavilion’s visitors to partake in a bodily experience, to transgress limiting concepts, and to reconsider notions of belonging and co-existence.