Kvadrat – La Biennale di Venezia 2024

British Pavilion – John Akomfrah – Listening All Night To The Rain

La Biennale di Venezia 2024, 20 April – 24 November 2024

Kvadrat is proud to support the British and the Danish Pavilion at the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. The British Pavilion presents artist and filmmaker John Akomfrah’s commission entitled Listening All Night To The Rain, where he explores post- colonialism, environmental devastation and the politics of aesthetics. The Danish Pavilion unveils Inuuteq Storch’s Rise of the Sunken Sun, an installation of photographic works highlighting Greenlandic life and engaging in a decolonial process.

Listening All Night To The Rain by John Akomfrah – British Pavilion John Akomfrah’s boldest and most ambitious commission to date, Listening All Night To the Rain, draws its title from 11th century Chinese writer and artist Su Dongpo’s poetry, which explores the transitory nature of life during a period of political exile. Organised into a series of song-like movements or ‘cantos’, the exhibition, curated by Tarini Malik, brings together eight interlocking and overlapping multimedia and sound installations into a single and immersive environment that tell stories of migrant diasporas in Britain. The exhibition is the result of decades of extensive research by the artist and his team, using historical records to contextualise our experience of the present day.

For Listening All Night To The Rain, Kvadrat has supported with 480 meters of Divina 3 and Hero 2.
It has been used as curtains, upholstery for furniture and panels to improve the acoustics of the to exhibition design, which leads the visitor through a sensory journey, where colour underlines the emotions of the installations and to optimise acoustics. Listening All Night To The Rain continues investigation into themes of memory, migration, racial injustice and climate change with a renewed focus on the act of listening and the sonic. The exhibition, conceived as a single installation with eight interlocking and overlapping multi-screen sound and time-based works, is seen as a manifesto that encourages the idea of listening as activism and positions various progressive theories of acoustemology: how new ways of becoming are rooted in different forms of listening.

Encouraging visitors to experience the British Pavilion’s 19th century neoclassical building in a different way, Akomfrah’s commission interprets and transforms the fabric of the space in order to interrogate relics and monuments of colonial histories. Open-ended in structure, the alliterative nature of the exhibition is reflective of the artist’s abiding interest in non-linear forms of storytelling and collage. Listening All Night To The Rain repositions the role of art in its ability to write history in unexpected ways, forming both critical and poetic connections between different geographies and time periods.

John Akomfrah said: “The exhibition is about trying to create a space where people can experience, understand and engage with questions of acoustemology: a sonic way of knowing and being in the world. This is at the core of the Pavilion – be it the ethics, the aesthetics, the problematics, the memories or the histories of listening. When you’re listening, you’re tuned into your own dreams and ambitions, and to the stories that people tell, unearthing narratives. The key visual motif of the Pavilion – flooding – revisits concerns about climate change but uses the occasion of the approaching crises to encourage a re-thinking of our past. It’s a moment to take a detour through avenues of memory, suggesting paths perhapsnot taken because we weren’t listening.”

Rise of the Sunken Sun by Inuuteq Storch – Danish Pavilion The Danish Pavilion is proud to present the photography exhibition Rise of the Sunken Sun by the artist Inuuteq Storch at the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. This exhibition marks the Danish Pavilion’s first presentation of an artist from the North Atlantic region of the Danish Realm and the inaugural solo photography exhibition for the Pavilion.

Aligned with the Biennale Arte 2024 theme, Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere, Storch’s Rise of the Sunken Sun delves into the concept of engaging in a decolonial process, emphasising the pursuit of visibility, with a sensitive awareness of the complexities within national, cultural, and personal identities. The exhibition invites viewers into the heart of Greenlandic life, merging historical and contemporary perspectives through six thematic photography series. Storch corrects and extends the prevailing vision of Greenland, a self-governing, autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. His work examines the expansiveness of Greenlandic identity, seamlessly merging historical and family photographs with contemporary snapshots of everyday life.

Rise of the Sunken Sun is supported with over 120 meters of custom- made curtain textile called Brush from Kvadrat. The presentation unfolds against the printed textile backdrop with Kalaallit Nunaat, Greenland’s native name, offering a nuanced narrative that transcends conventional representations of Greenland.

Kvadrat is actively involved in supporting contemporary art through frequent collaborations with international artists and designers on significant exhibitions, projects, installations, and individual art and design works. This creative expression is essential to the Kvadrat culture. Each new project and collaboration pushes the boundaries of textile design, through investigations into materiality or space. Kvadrat textiles have been used in works of artists including Olafur Eliasson, Aamu Song, Thomas Demand, Haegue Yang, Wu Tsang, Pipilotti Rist and Dahn Vo, amongst many others.

Danish Pavilion – Inuuteq Storch – Rise of the Sunken Sun

Danish Pavilion – Inuuteq Storch – Rise of the Sunken Sun

About Kvadrat
Kvadrat was established in Denmark in 1968 and has deep roots in Scandinavia’s world-famous design tradition. A leader in design innovation, Kvadrat produces high-performance, design textiles, rugs, acoustic and window covering solutions for both commercial and residential interiors.

Our products reflect our commitment to colour, quality, simplicity and innovation. We consistently push the aesthetic, technological and functional properties of textiles. In doing so, we collaborate with leading designers, architects and artists including: Miriam Bäckström, Raf Simons, Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, Thomas Demand, Olafur Eliasson, Alfredo Häberli, Akira Minagawa, Peter Saville, Roman Signer, Doshi Levien and Patricia Urquiola.

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