EL GRAN GRITO

Artists: Ester Alemayehu Hatle, Kristian Suvatne Augland, Nefeli Chrysa Avgeris, Ikum Basil, Léon Bloch, Amélie Bodenmann, Florent Bonzon, Paloma Bosquê, Leonardo Bürgi Tenorio, Saturne Camus-Govoroff, Noa & Lara Castro Lema, Laurie De Jesus Lagares, Yukari Egger, Claudia Gutiérrez Marfull, Arbion Hamdiu, Johanna Helfer, Susi Hinz, Pat Homse, Alona Hrekova, Gilles Jacot, La-Im Kim, Kilian Kistler, Peter Kradolfer, Camille Lambelet, Floris Maniscalco, Grégoire-Cesare Marcel, Elena Matamoro, Janu Maya, Ramiro Oller, Patrick Gerhard Ostrowsky, Anastasia Pavlou, Emmanuel Joan Pidré Starosta, Margherita Raso, Nina Rieben, Nadiia Rohozhyna, Lilli Schaugg, Alan Sierra, Virginie Sistek, Anastasiia Ulianchyk, Oleksandra Ulianchyk, Linus Weber, Jodok Wehrli, Vital Z’Brun

Curated by El Palomar and Chus Martínez; Curatorial Assistance Tabea Rothfuchs.

Part I: Context
The title of this year’s graduation exhibition of the Institute Art Gender Nature, Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW is EL GRAN GRITO—the great scream. This is not referring to a scream of pain but to a collective scream of liberation. We feel, finally, liberated from the conditions imposed upon life by the pandemic. It feels great to be able to meet and talk without a mask and move again, and to be together without the many restrictions we experienced. And yet it is also true that the pandemic did not help the world change for the better, and nor did we, the inhabitants of our planet. The pandemic accelerated a social schism that was already latent, but that is now bold and expressing itself in the worst possible ways. Economic conditions changed and surely have a bad influence in our decision making, but not only. Our cultural conditions were altered as well and we are living in disagreement about our future paths, which will undoubtably have severe consequences for all of us. 

But yes, we will use the opportunity here to call for conversation rounds, for a mutual observation and a careful design of possible scenarios and actions to enable art and culture to moderate social and collective experience. Indeed, who are we to do so, right? Just an art academy in Switzerland. Indeed, in our boldness, we believe in the constituency of our community and in the immense value of education. Contrary to others, we do not think that we are going to be facing social protests or upheavals to counterbalance the many processes of public impoverishment we are constantly undergoing. We believe that we may rather implode in poverty and sadness due to a sentiment of loss and the growing anxiety produced by the lack of perspectives. 

To that end, art education is not a matter of skills and the production of works—not as understood by and taught within the Institute Art Gender Nature HGK Basel FHNW—nor a given acquired by practice and hours of work. Art education names a deep research into the bonds that can be created and implemented through experience in the social realm to secure a sense of the self extended out toward the collective. Art education is the name of the development of languages, methods, practices, situations and also artworks aimed at activating experience as the driving force that motivates us towards freedom, empathy, love, health, relevance, friendship… If this is so, and it is, how then can we prepare for the transformations ahead if we do not feel relevant and connected, if we do not have a sense of sensing life and being sensed by others as meaningful? Art education concerns itself with being able—again and again—to produce this experience of sympathy and connection at the core of the social. 

Part II: The graduation exhibition
This year at the Institute Art Gender Nature HGK Basel FHNW, as in many prior years, the graduation exhibition is co-curated with guests. El Palomar, this year’s co-curators, are a collective duo of artists originally from Spain whose work is deeply concerned with equality, diversity, and gender. Their practice revolves around the moving image, curating, media installations, performance, and music, while their productions are focused on trans discourses and empowerment. That said, the graduation exhibition contains works by artists finishing their bachelor’s and master’s programs at the Institute Art Gender Nature HGK Basel FHNW. 

This is not a thematic exhibition. This is a continuous exhibition, one that creates a flow of viewing works together, connecting ways of doing and forms of addressing concerns that are for you to discover. All the works take your presence as a viewer strongly into account. Your experience of the works is fundamental to maintaining a collective experience of the cultural space we are producing and insisting upon. Through all of the works runs an imagination of the world as a shared place; the simple and fundamental fact of living together creates conditions for collective experiences of pain and joy that allow us to understand better who we are in relation with others. This comprehensive force hopefully provokes conversations and ideas that compels you to be closer to one another. This closeness performed in the public space of an art exhibition is fundamental to avoid polarization and the risk of totalitarian fantasies and practices. 

We extend our gratitude to Kunsthaus Baselland, its director Ines Goldbach and her team, for collaborating with us to host our graduation exhibition for the eighth time.

Chus Martínez and El Palomar. 

EL GRAN GRITO is part of Kunsttage Basel (August 25–27, 2023). 

Press contact: Institute Art Gender Nature, Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW, Anna Francke, email, T +41 61 228 43 25.