What to See at Carriageworks During the 20th Biennale of Sydney
Mysterious performances, artist talks and the creation (and destruction) of artworks.
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When the 20th Biennale of Sydney arrives on Friday, March 18, Carriageworks will become the Embassy of Disappearance. As you wander through the transformed space, you'll encounter works dealing with absence, memory and vanishing entities — from histories and languages to currencies and landscapes.
To find out the stories behind the many works appearing — and disappearing — during the Biennale, check out the artists' talks, which will be happening throughout the first weekend. On Friday, March 18 you'll hear from Yannick Dauby and Wan-Shuen Tsai at 10.30am, who have spent years in Taiwanese communities, gathering sound archives and materials. At 11am, Mette Edvardsen and Andre Lepecki will take to the floor, to discuss their two projects: a collection of "living books", to be held at Newtown Library, and a performance titled No title. Other speakers on Friday's program include Aura Satz in conversation with writer Douglas Kahn and multi-disciplinarian Robert Zhao Renhui, who'll be talking about Christmas Island.
This will be followed by the Biennale's Keynote Address on Saturday, March 19 at 6.30pm, which will be delivered by Boris Charmatz, director of the Dancing Museum in Rennes, France, and followed by a performance of his work manger at 8pm. Then you'll get to meet María Isabel Rueda, whose work features 36 slides documenting the crumbling Colombian home of artist Norman Mejía, and Yuta Nakamura, who'll be discussing his Japanese ceramics-inspired installation. Neha Choksi, whose work will be prefaced with a performance named In Memory of the Last Sunset, will also be speaking, along with Chen Chieh-jen, a legendary conceptual artist from Taiwan.
And, for the ultimate "disappearance", join Lee Mingwei as he recreates — and then destroys — Pablo Picasso's powerful anti-war mural, Guernica at midday on Saturday, April 23. After he's replicated the painting using sand, the audience will be invited, one by one, to walk all over it, before watching Mingwei and his colaborators sweep it away, turning it into a complete new artwork.
The Carriageworks 20th Biennale of Sydney program will run from March 18 until June 5, 2016. For more details, visit their website.
Image: Lauren Brincat, 'This Time Tomorrow Tempelhof', 2011
