Artist Talks – Spring 2025

13.1.2025 0 Like 0 kommenttia Samir Bhowmik

An Introduction by Blanca de la Torre (co-curator of Helsinki Biennial 2025) and commissioned artists: Tue Greenfort, Nabb+Teeri and Tania Candiani.

20.1. Introduction by Blanca de la Torre, Co-Curator of Helsinki Biennial 2025.

3.2. Tue Greenfort: Exceeding 2 Degrees
Tue Greenfort (b. 1973) works cross-aesthetically, based on a site-oriented installation practice. He often takes concepts such as nature, ecology and sustainability as his starting point; how these concepts are historically inscribed as Western ideal narratives and develop his projects from here. He is interested in social relations and how human subjectivity is related to a normative notion of a natural order. Of course, as part of a critical thinking of Art. Greenfort is particularly interested in climate and environmental issues and in his art he often deals with themes that put these topics into debate or in perspective, as is expressed, for example, in his illumination of scientific dogmas, economic systems or modern agrarian production methods. Tue Greenfort gives an introduction to his both temporary and permanent projects in the public space and discusses how visual art plays a crucial role in the public debate.

24.2. Nabb+Teeri
Nabb+Teeri approach questions related to contradictions of artworking, thinking with hands, grieving and learning to be affected, embracing the unknowability of others – as well as gardening. Timothy Morton has argued that thinking the ecological thought doesn’t simply occur “in the mind”. Instead, he describes it as a practice and a process of becoming aware of all the ways our human bodies are connected with other beings; flora, fauna, and mineral. With this contemplation-as-doing in view, nabbteeri has scraped together existing fragments, like modular building-blocks that turned into companions, digital lumps, material dialogues, or scavenged scraps of text. The collection is about to grow new limbs, drop some old ones, adjust its form and meaning whenever attached to a context & transferred to a location. The seasons, the darknesses, the agitated climate system, are all invited to intervene. They never miss an opportunity. “We think that by aligning the wasteland ways with the necropastoral state of mind we can approach ethics and aesthetics that allow the site to retain its agencies and mysteries. Meanwhile we learn to find foothold, centring not ourselves but others, letting go of control, using the parasite privileges to waste time recklessly, asking unproductive questions, thriving, decomposing”.

10.3. Tania Candiani: Attuning to place: Site Specific and Relational Ecologies
In this talk, Tania Candiani will explore the deep interconnections between artistic creation, ecosystems, and the more-than-human world. Through a selection of past and current projects, she will discuss how site-specific research and engagement shape her practice, emphasizing the importance of working within and responding to specific environments. Candiani’s work investigates the relationships between humans and other living entities, examining how sound, materiality, and history resonate in landscapes. Her approach integrates ecology, technology, and traditional knowledge, fostering dialogues on conservation, reciprocity, and the possibilities of co-creating with the natural world. The lecture will reflect on the necessity of attuning to place, listening to its rhythms, and understanding its complexities as a fundamental part of contemporary artistic practice.

Speaker Bios

Blanca de la Torre is a PhD, curator, art historian and researcher whose professional work lies at the intersection of visual arts, cultural ecology, and sustainable creative practices. Her professional activity includes, in addition to curating exhibitions, artistic director of projects, seminars, workshops, curatorial residencies and international symposiums. At this moment she is Head Curator of the Helsinki Biennial 2025 with Kati Kivinen, and artistic director of ISLA, Madrid.

Tue Greenfort graduated from the Funen Academy of Fine Arts and from the Städelschule, Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Frankfurt am Main. He has exhibited at a wide range of institutions in Denmark and abroad, including solo exhibitions at Den Frie (2017), Berlinische Galerie (2012), South London Gallery (2011), Kunstverein Braunschweig (2008) and Secession, Vienna (2007) and participated in many important group exhibitions, including dOKUMENTA(13) (2012), Skulptur Projekte Münster (2007) and Wanås (2009).

nabbteeri is a four-handed artistic unit currently based in Övermark, Finland. Their practice consists mainly of parasite-sensitive installations with a focus on nurturing connections with the surrounding unpaved soil. Art and garden work repeatedly intertwine in their practice, which has significantly influenced their thinking over the past decade. nabbteeri’s work has been inhabiting multiple venues between Norðurlandahúsið in Tórshavn, Faroe Islands, and Art Sonje Center in Seoul, South Korea. In 2019, nabbteeri took part in the 58th Biennale Arte in Venice. Their favourite project so far has been at Färgfabriken, Stockholm; nabbteeri’s whatever lives bends down was the konsthall’s main exhibition for the autumn 2023. The artists will participate in the next edition of Helsinki Biennial, which will open in June 2025.

Tania Candiani lives and works in Mexico City. One of the central interests of her work is the expanded idea of translation, extended to the experimental field through the use of visual, sound, textual and symbolical languages. Many of her projects consider the universe of sound and the politics of listening as a tool capable of expanding and transforming perceptions, both human and non-human. A fundamental part of her work is related to feminist policies and practices, understanding them as a communal, affective and ritual experience. Her production usually involves interdisciplinary working groups in various fields, consolidating intersections between art, literature, music, architecture, science, and labor, with an emphasis on ancestral knowledge and techniques, technologies, and their history in the production of knowledge. She is a member of the National System of Art Creators of Mexico; a former recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship in the Arts, the Smithsonian Institution Research Grant for Artists; Artist-in-residence at the Arts at CERN program, in Geneva, Switzerland. In 2015 she represented Mexico at the 56th Venice Biennale. Her work has been exhibited internationally in museums, institutions and independent spaces, and is part of important public and private collections.