For three months and across more than ten venues, several dozen artistic events will take place, featuring works by artists from all over the world – from the deceased, such as Samuel Beckett and Kazimir Malevich, to the actively working, such as French choreographer Boris Charmatz, legend of American dance theatre William Forsythe, and Swiss artist Shahryar Nashat.
The Sydney biennale will also host an exhibition of works linked to one of Poland's leading science fiction writers, Stanisław Lem. The LEM2 project was created by Heman Chong, a Singaporean artist, curator and writer born in 1977 in Malaysia, and graduate of the Royal College of Art in London. Chong, interested in the ways we perceive the future, has built an informal bookstore with second-hand copies of Lem's books. The audience will be invited to participate in the project and purchase the books for a token amount.
Internationally revered today, Stanisław Lem was a leading representative of Polish science fiction, a philosopher, futurologist and essayist. Lem explored almost all the opportunities offered to writers by contemporary science-fiction. It could be even said that his relatively short, but abundant bibliography mirrored the evolution of the genre. In fact, he began his career with simple, sanguine and reassuring tales (The Astronauts and The Magellanic Cloud), but soon moved towards parody (The Star Diaries) as well as dystopian and apocalyptic visions of ‘the worst of all possible words’ (Eden).
The 20th Biennale of Sydney
"The future is already here — it’s just not evenly distributed"
18th March to 5th June 2016
Artistic director: Stephanie Rosenthal
Sources: biennaleofsydney.com.au, culture.pl, compiled by AS, translated by OK, 16 March 2016