Pera + Flora + Fauna: The Story of Indigenousness and the Ownership of History @ 59th La Biennale di Venezia
Collateral Event of the 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 23 April -27 November 2022, Archivi della Misericordia, Venice, Italy
People of Remarkable Talents (PORT), an arts and culture agency under the Perak State Government, with support from the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture, and the National Art Gallery Malaysia, announces its commission of the exhibition Pera + Flora + Fauna, as an official Collateral Event at the 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. PORT is honoured to present at this prestigious international art event, the artists and artworks that have been inspired by the rich histories and context of the state of Perak, Malaysia.
Pera + Flora + Fauna engages with the discourse around how indigenousness and nature are affected by mainstream cultural attitudes of industrialised nations, the very nations contributing to existing environmental problems. This leads us to question, can aesthetic thinking support the conservation and restoration of nature or indigenous rights and ways of life? Can indigenous populations across the globe challenge the mainstream documented (art) history written by the non-indigenous? Can indigenous populations achieve the liberty to collectively claim “their own history and narratives”, antagonising the dominant discourse? Pera + Flora + Fauna intends to address these questions drawing on different perspectives of man, nature, and their interrelation.
The exhibition features Malaysian artists and collectives, and an Italian artist, from multiple disciplines ranging across performance, film, sound, sculpture, and new media. The artists are Azizan Paiman (MY), Kamal Sabran (MY), Kapallorek Artspace (MY), Kim Ng (MY), Projek Rabak (MY), Saiful Razman (MY) and Stefano Cagol (ITA), with the contribution and participation of the people of the Semai tribe from Kampung Ras, Sungkai, Perak.
Pera + Flora + Fauna will take place at Archivi della Misericordia in Cannaregio, Venice; commissioned by Nur Hanim Mohamed Khairuddin, General Manager of PORT, and curated by appointed lead curators Amir Zainorin and Khaled Ramadan, and associate curators Annie Jael Kwan and Camilla Boemio.
The team is advised by Alfredo Cramerotti, the president of IKT and the director of MOSTYN, Wales.
In conjunction with the exhibition, the discourse expands through a forum where invited panelists Alfredo Cramerotti, Dorian Batycka, Henry Meyric Hughes, and Jo-Lene Ong, along with the curators and artists, will share their observations and interpretations around the concept of Ownership of Nature and History; attempting to contextualise the notion of the natural and the historic and why it cannot be independent of the intellectual, artistic, emotional, and technological resources available to us in the industrialised world. In addition, there will be three on-site performances by the artists; one which explores sound and body movement to heal the internal psychic and spiritual body based on Malay traditional healing rituals; the others inviting the audience to engage with the ongoing contest between capitalist-driven narratives of extractivism towards land and indigenous peoples, and the agency and creative resilience of indigenous communities in sharing their histories and holistic principles of coexistence with nature.
For the Love of Air Liquid
Opening exhibition 18th – 30th April 2018, Chamber of Public Secrets’ new media art production and exhibition space, Media Art Research Center (MARC), Antalya
Fernissage 18th April 2018 at 17:00 – 19:00
Artists: Ferhat Ozgur, Stefano Cagol, Ursula Biemann, Oliver Ressler, Khaled Ramadan and Hanna Ljungh
Curated by Khaled Ramadan and Alfredo Cramerotti
For the love of air liquid
Water’s impact on human happiness
I his book, Blue Mind, biologist Wallace J. Nichols published the surprising science showing how being near, in, on, or under water can make us happier, healthier, more connected and better at what we do.
Nichols analyzes the emotional, behavioral, psychological and physical connections that keep humans so mesmerized by water. He studies seas and oceans, lakes and rivers, and even swimming pools, and urges people to get closer to water if they wish to change their neurological, psychological and emotional experiences. Nichols draws on science, art, and narrative, as well as plenty of experience, to explain his blue mind in detail. Not just what it is, but how we can enter into this state, and, perhaps most importantly, why we should do so.
In order to know why water is one of our sources of happiness, or even a source of misery, we need to observe and analyze a very complex social science in conjunction with natural science: human relation to nature and the natural.
When we intend to shape nature, it changes and influences our living conditions. Due to this out-of-balance climatological interrelationship several vital elements of our survival are being affected. Water is becoming scarcer in some parts of the world while in other parts people suffer from the extra quantities of water falling from the sky or pumping from underneath.
In the scenarios of the world’s water bodies, only 3 percent of the water on the earth’s surface is fresh and drinkable, while 97 percent of the water is salty. The 3 percent fresh water is shared amongst the billions of the world’s population. Water shortage will soon hit cities and towns across the world, and the problem is increasing as populations are increasing. Industrialization and pollution are causing damage, and the greenhouse effect is having a negative impact, which leads to climate change that directly affects water sources. In an increasingly crowded and congested world, water supply has become scarcer and more contaminated.
Waste from industries and human settlements in most underdeveloped countries are drained into rivers and seas, leading to dying oceans. A good example of this is the Mediterranean Sea. Another example is one of Asia’s longest rivers, the Mekong River, where thousands of people have settled by the riverbank. The same analogy can be applied to the Nile River in Africa and to other rivers across the world. Lakes, rivers, seas and oceans used to be a source of human happiness and prosperity, but mass contamination, overfishing, and water scarcity have reduced many of them to transportation highways.
The exhibition,For the Love of Air Liquid, presents an opportunity to address the issue of water in a time of a crashing climate. The works of the invited artists examine our fascination with the water scene in detail. They are dedicated to helping us understand and enjoy a selection of contemporary art that provides inspiration and knowledge.
Curators
Khaled Ramadan and Alfredo Cramerotti
More information here.
Le Maldive a Venezia. Cronaca di un debutto – interview [Italian]
Espoarte.com
Intervista a CAMILLA BOEMIO e ALFREDO CRAMEROTTI
5 Luglio 2013
di Francesca Di Giorgio
Biennale Updates: cronache dall’effimero per la prima volta del Padiglione Maldive in Laguna
Artribune.com [Italian only]
30 May 2013
by Francesco Sala
Alle otto del mattino non c’è nessuno lungo Riva di Ca’ di Dio. Pochi temerari in tenuta da jogging, i ragazzini che si trascinano a scuola, un paio di turisti. E poi un blocco di ghiaccio. Sbarca dal Canale dell’Arsenale, trascinato a forza di muletto; prende a sciogliersi, inesorabile, una goccia alla volta. È il monolite con cui Stefano Cagol significa la sua partecipazione alla Biennale di Venezia, ospite di quel Padiglione Maldive che ha trovato casa –alla sua prima volta in Laguna –in uno stabile semi-abbandonato in viale Garibaldi. Verrà il giorno in cui le Maldive non si saranno più, sommerse un centimetro alla volta dall’innalzamento del livello degli oceani; la raccolta messa insieme dal collettivo CPS – Chambers of Public Secrets indugia sul titanico precariato di una terra in crisi di identità, storica piattaforma tra Oriente e Occidente che esorcizza nell’arte la sua eutanasia.
Aggressività post-espressionista per The Disappearance di Wael Darwesh, che colpisce sulla tela con antica disperazione; gli fa da controcanto l’installazione di Patrizio Travagli, tetris di superfici specchianti che illudono e alludono in una straniante frammentazione dello spazio visivo. Inevitabili i riferimenti allo tsunami, che ha portato il suo carico di brutalità anche alle Maldive: sul tema arriva l’installazione di Thierry Geoffroy, mentre a ragionare su una ricostruzione più o meno possibile sono Christoph Draeger ed Heidrun Holzfeind.
Island Nations Seize the Venice Biennale Spotlight to Decry Climate Change
Blouin Artinfo
06.12.2013
by Kate Deimling
Curatorview [Alfredo Cramerotti] 
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