Gala Porras-Kim and Asad Raza

Autumn/spring 2024 Pina issue #1
Pina is a new exhibition space in the form of a magazine in-print. Each issue houses two 60-page exhibitions commissioned uniquely for Pina—both of which are accompanied by a work of short fiction and a conversation between the artist and a notable thinker. Pina proposes to reimagine the exhibition as a worldbuilding experience, accessible from multiple entry points within a flat, portable and collectible space. Its name comes from the Latin/Ancient Greek pinax: a (painted) board or tablet; and is the root word for pinacoteca, a home for images. It comes out when it’s autumn in the north and spring in the south, and viceversa.

Pina issue #1 presents exhibitions by Gala Porras-Kim and Asad Raza.

The artistic practice of Gala Porras-Kim is dedicated to thinking about the relationship between objects and the institutions that house them. For Pina, Porras-Kim has conceived Conditions for recognising a living stone: a legal case defending the labour and immigration rights of the Ka (life force) of Nenkheftka, an ancient Egyptian official who dwells in a statue kept at the British Museum. Joined by a team that includes a lawyer and an egyptologist, Porras-Kim’s exhibition seeks to restore Nenkheftka’s agency in his afterlife plans. She examines the parameters of respecting beliefs about law, biology and religion across cultural, geographic and temporal spectrums. Accompanying it, is a conversation with Adam Kleinman, the writer, curator and Director of Kunsthall Trondheim, Norway; and “Bedtime Story”, a newly commissioned work of short fiction by Jessi Jezewska Stevens.

In his work, Asad Raza conducts encounters within and beyond the exhibition, conceiving of art as a metabolic, active experience. For Pina, Raza has conceived Array, tracing the journey of radiation from sources across the universe to the trees used to produce the paper of the magazine, and then, reflected by that paper into the reader’s eye. Simultaneously an expansion and condensation of spatial and radiational temporalities, Array is in direct response to the act of seeing, and the surface on which the magazine is printed. Accompanying Raza’s exhibition is a conversation with Karen Barad, Physicist and Distinguished Professor of Feminist Studies and Philosophy at the University of California, Santa Cruz; and “The Tree Daughter”, a newly commissioned work of short fiction by Akil Kumarasamy.

Launch events
Possibilities of Exhibition Design: Thursday October 31, 7:30pm
Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam. A performance-lecture by Asad Raza, followed by a panel discussion between Raza, Aric Chen and Yolande Zola Zoli van der Heide.

Conditions for recognising a living stone: Friday November 15, 6:30pm
Delfina Foundation, London. A conversation between Gala Porras-Kim and Catalina Imizcoz.

For more information, email bk [​at​] pinamagazine.com. Join our newsletter or subscribe. Pina was founded by Editor Catalina Imizcoz, it is made in collaboration with the London-based designers Graphic Thought Facility, Producer Lucila de Arizmendi and Deputy Editor Bitsy Knox.