Our Land / Your Territory | Triumph en

OUR LAND / YOUR TERRITORY

The special project of the VI Moscow Biennale

16.09.2015 – 04.10.2015

Central Exhibition Hall “Manege”, Moscow

www.moscowmanege.ru

curator

Yulia Aksenova

coordinators

Kristina Romanova

Sofia Simakova

technical director

Михаил Марткович

artists

Maja Bajevic

Aleksandr Barkovskiy

Anca Benera & Arnold Estefan

Sergey Bratkov

Sofya Gavrilova

Aslan Gaysumov

Shilpa Gupta

Shezad Dawood

Danika Dakic

Sitara Ibragimova

Yulia Kazas

Amar Kanwar

David-Perez Karmadavis

Urban Fauna Lab

Taus Makhacheva

Anja Medved

Yerbossyn Meldibekov

Mehreen Murtaza

Igor Mukhin

Nira Pereg

Dan Peterman

Tenzing Rigdol

Kristina Romanova

Stefan Rusu

Shahzia Sikander

Lawrence Abu Hamdan

Albert Heta

Elizabeth Hoak-Doering

Tiffany Chung

Shitamichi Motoyuki& Sophie Ernst

The exhibition Our Land / Your Territory brought together artists from different countries and global regions who investigate in their works the link between space and politics. The main topic of the presented works is the phenomenon of disputed territories, and also border zones in a state of constant instability and open conflict.

The idea of this exhibition was dictated by the circumstances of a specific political event — Crimea’s accession into Russia. This precedent has not only radically affected all areas of social life in our country, but also caused tectonic shifts in the global geopolitical landscape, resulting in open confrontation between Russia and the West. Finding oneself in this situation and ending up a hostage, one is bound to look for forms of critical revaluation, aware of the causes and effects. Here it would seem important to try and answer the issue of concern to us all: how this could happen at the start of the 21st century, when the concept of state sovereignty is incontrovertible, and the borders between states appear inviolable?

Today, the authors in their works turn on the one hand to academic disciplines — geography, sociology, anthropology, ethnography, and on the other hand the personal and biographical experience of individuals becomes the most important resource. The diversity of their world views and life journeys will enable us to exceed the bounds of the parochial problem of geopolitical confrontation, and gain a critical understanding of the more profound basis of the connections between the issues for the self-determination of the national community and its affiliation to the specific territory.