Luleåbiennalen 2020 | Julevädno

Luleå Biennial 2020:
Time on Earth
21.11.2020~14.2.2020

Information regarding Covid-19

Last chance The Luleå Biennial 2020: Time on Earth

Wednesday February 10, 16~20 and Saturday February 13–Sunday February 14, 12~16
Galleri Syster is open. Group show with Augusta Strömberg, Susanna Jablonski and Ana Vaz.

Thursday February 11–Sunday February 14, 12~16
Havremagasinet länskonsthall in Bodenis open. Group show with Beatrice Gibson, Susanna Jablonski, Birgitta Linhart, Fathia Mohidin, Charlotte Posenenske, Tommy Tommie and Danae Valenza.

Saturday February 13–Sunday February 14, 14~18
The former prison Vita Duvan is open with an electro acoustic installation by Maria W Horn.

Saturday February 13, 15~19
The artist Markus Öhrn and the poet David Väyrynens sound installation "Bikt" is exhibited on the ice by Residensgatan in Luleå. Listen to older generations of Tornedal women and their testimonies.

Book your visit via Billetto. Drop in is possible as far as space allows.

For those of you who do not have the opportunity to physically visit the Luleå Biennale on site, a radio show including artist talks, sound works and specially written essays will be on stream on Saturday February 13–Sunday February 14. Visit our radio page here.

The exhibitions at Norrbotten's Museum, Luleå konsthall, Välkommaskolan in Malmberget and the Silver Museum are unfortunatly closed.

2018~2021

Julevädno
Katarina Pirak Sikku

Draft of the artwork *Julevädno* by Katarina Pirak Sikku, 2020~2021.

The image shows a detail of the artwork Julevädno by Katarina Pirak Sikku for the exhibition A Careful Strike° at Mint konsthall at The Workers Educational Association opening fall 2021. Julevädno is the Sámi name for Lule river. Since 1915, the river has been cut off in several places where the Swedish state has built hydropower plants. In the Sami understanding of the river, it is a living force and moving water. Today the river stands still. The name derives from the Sami Lulij “the one who lives in the east” and relates to the Sami understanding of direction where the waters movement is part in situating an orienting direction unlike the trans territorial cardinal directions which are established by the earth’s magnetic north pole. The conversion of the river into a source of electricity has destroyed traditional Sami reindeer grazing lands and enabled the industrialization and further colonization of Sami land during the 20th century until today. In addition to the unauthorized destruction of a way of life and the Sámi relationship to the river, most of the value extracted from hydropower has never been returned to the Sámi nation. In the work Julevädno, Katarina Pirak Sikku shows the history of the river by painting two versions of it taken from different points in time, the beginning of the 20th century and today. The river’s two times set against each other clearly show the trauma of several cuts and dams created by the hydropower plants. Wounds that divided Sami communities and transformed Julevädno into something else.
°Precarias a la deriva, 2005

2020

Radio 65.22 is an auditory cross section of the biennial’s theme and contents, which amplifies and makes accessible written texts, framed situations and artistic voices. Radio 65.22 also enables an encounter with chosen parts of the Luleå Biennial’s activities for those who cannot experience the biennial in situ.

With Radio 65.22, we want to inscribe ourselves into an experimental and exploratory radio tradition, where the media itself becomes a platform for our ideas on radio and its capacity to depict and mirror the world around us. The task of Radio 65.22 is to tell of reality, in further ways that may not be possible through the image or the text.

Under Fragments: Time on Earth you will find radio programmes and sound pieces in different genres and forms that reflect this year’s biennial in various ways. Spirit of Place is a touring series of literary conversations on language and place. The culture journalist Kerstin Wixe takes us along to places that have played a significant part in an author’s stories, or carries the story’s history. Woven Songs is a deepening series of radio programmes that accentuate singing, the voice and the role of storytelling in the creation of new world views and orders, produced in collaboration with Public Art Agency Sweden.

Listen, reflect, enjoy!