Care in Uncertain Times / Testing Grounds 2021

The inaugural event of the South Iceland Biennale is a curated programme, slated for late summer 2021, titled Care in Uncertain Times / Testing Ground 2021. Art-making involves exploring the world, forming an understanding, and sharp focus. This requires care. The Biennale is an experiment in applying such care to society, the environment, and the uncertainty that now confronts humanity.

The Care in Uncertain Times / Testing Grounds programme is guided by three curators and centres on three research themes that raise central questions about human intervention in the natural world and in the future. The goal is to engage a broad group of participants. Garðar Eyjólfsson, designer – Mitigation and Adaptation: Garðar will initiate a cross-disciplinary dialogue among the sciences, humanities, and arts that builds on an established governmental decision-making model for climate threats: When do environmental and technological changes call for mitigation and when do they call for adaptation? This dialogue offers a clear angle from which to discuss and explore (future) possibilities for humanity’s relationship to nature, technology, and social action. Ósk Vilhjálmsdóttir, artist – Nomadic Expeditions. Ósk guides a tour through a landscape that undergoes continual rebirth and destruction. She will be joined by the Stalker research collective, which uses walking as a participatory method for mapping, “actuating,” and redefining areas. Sigrún Birgisdóttir, architect – Urbanizing Landscapes. Sigrún will lead a discussion on the changed landscape of rural settlements, with a focus on how changed modes of production and new technologies relate to, and influence, architecture and the built environment.

Workshops, talks, field trips, and expeditions will provide platforms for discussion, for tracing lines of conflict, visualizing possibilities, and mapping out a new understanding of humanity´s relationship to the natural world. Through cross-disciplinary collaborations, the South Iceland Biennale aims to create a fusion of ideas founded on research into local conditions that is contextualized within international currents and directions in the arts, design, and architecture.