null Uniarts Helsinki plans an even more prominent presence in Venice



The Research Pavilion increases the dialogue between artistic research and contemporary art and brings about new kinds of multidisciplinary exhibition practices

Uniarts Helsinki will have an even stonger presence next spring in the context of Venice Biennale, one of the most famous art exhibitions in the world, and plans to open a Research Pavilion in Venice  in May.

”The pilot edition of the Research Pavilion took place in Venice in 2015, and the enthusiastic reactions from the international art and research field were a sign that there is a clear need and demand for this kind of a concept”, Professor Anita Seppä, Commissioner of the Pavilion, says. 

The concept for the Research Pavilion is even more multidisciplinary and international this time thanks to the collaboration between the academies. The university has also invited a large network of institutions as its partners: The Norwegian Artistic Research Programme (NARP) and the Swedish Arts Universities’ network Konstex, which comprise a total of 22 art institutions of higher education, along with the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and Zurich University of the Arts. 

“We want to develop new kinds of multi-artistic exhibition activities and create a fresh dialogue between artistic research practices and contemporary art. Venice is a top-level platform for showcasing artistic research“, Seppä notes.

The Research Pavilion will host three international contemporary art exhibitions of high quality between May and October, and it will also feature a parallel side programme set up as a collaboration between different art fields. Under the title The Utopia of Access, the university requested a variety of aesthetic, scientific and political interpretations and perspectives on current issues through the methods of artistic research. The call for programme proposals was directed to a large network of European institutions in autumn 2016.   

“Internationality is one of the focus points of Uniarts Helsinki’s strategy, and the Research Pavilion contributes to this goal in several ways. The Research Pavilion makes both Uniarts Helsinki and its research more well-known on a global scale, and it strengthens our networks within prominent art and research organisations in Europe”, Rector Jari Perkiömäki says.