DRESDEN.- The time has come again! Following the great success of the first two Children’s Biennales, “Dreams and Stories” (2018/19) and “Embracing Nature” (2021/22), their long-awaited sequel is being presented under the title “PLANET UTOPIA” right in time for International Children’s Day.
The Biennale revolves around the question of how we want to shape our future and how we can make the world where we live a better place. These are key questions, especially in times of crisis and upheaval, and not just for children and young people. Right now, few needs seem more pressing than the need for utopias – ideas, dreams and visions. They chime with the fundamental questions humanity asks about the meaning of our existence and how it is changing. Art, in turn, is constantly on the lookout for utopias as it explores the future, the world and the endless possibilities it offers.
During the Children’s Biennale, local and international artists transform the
Japanisches Palais into a fantasy land that inspires visitors to look, listen, smell, feel, take part and explore. They will be invited to step into the world of art, abandoning the usual more passive, contemplative role they have at a museum and themselves becoming creative.
The artists’ spaces have been designed by:
Jeppe Hein, Today I feel like … Planet Utopia, 2024
The experimental, interactive artworks by Jeppe Hein (b. 1974) often involve an innate element of playfulness that encourages viewers to join in. The displayed piece inspires a moment not just of inner contemplation, mindfulness and the expression of their own feelings and thoughts, but also of empathetic encounters; a moment of shared experiences and togetherness.
Francis Al’s, REEL-UNREEL, 2011
The works of Francis Al’s (b. 1959), which combine video art and painting with urban interventions and performance poetry, depict seemingly everyday observations and phenomena. Closer inspection, however, reveals references to social, cultural and political issues. The video piece REEL-UNREEL follows children playing with a reel of film, rolling it through Kabul, Afghanistan.
mischer‘traxler studio, Insektenreich, 2024
Katharina Mischer (b. 1982), Thomas Traxler (b. 1981) and their team create products, scenographic designs and kinetic or interactive installations that balance craftsmanship and technology. With a group of child advisors, they have come up with an adaptation of the piece “curiosity cloud” (2015) that reflects on local biodiversity and the implications of climate change while telling the story of insects from a utopian future.
George Nuku, Palace of Potential, 2024 and Bottled Ocean, 2024
George Nuku (b. 1964) will be designing two rooms for the Children’s Biennale. The artist’s work draws on his ancestral heritage and the Māori artistic tradition, which goes back more than a millennium and promises to expand life and improve our survival. He sculpts materials such as plastic, feathers, wood and horn. In the “Palace of Potential”, echoing Dresden’s Kunstkammer (a cabinet of art and curiosity), Nuku will be asking questions about show, power, nature, culture and knowledge.
In the “Bottled Ocean” space, the artist will immerse visitors in a magical, dystopian underwater world of the future. Plastic gets into every corner of life on our planet. By turning it into art without denying how dangerous it is, Nuku calls upon visitors to redefine their relationship to the material.
Sissel Tolaas, p_RE_sense, 2024
The boundary-crossing experiences created by the trained chemist, mathematician, linguist, olfactory researcher and artist Sissel Tolaas (b. 1961) are designed to stimulate our memory, spark memories and trigger intellectual and emotional reactions. Her artistic exploration began with the question “What does a utopia smell like, or the future?”, the history and architecture of the Japanisches Palais and her fascination with the prophecies, calculations and rituals described in the Maya Codex of Dresden.
The Constitute & Kunststoffschmiede, CYCLE, 2024
The Constitute (Sebastian Piatza, b. 1985 and Christian Zöllner, b. 1981) and the “plastic smiths” Kunststoffschmiede (Konglomerat e.V.) are Dresden collectives that will be combining their knowledge and expertise to create sustainable cycles of material in a room-sized installation. This will enable people to playfully reflect on their own behaviour as consumers and will be an interactive means of making them aware of the 3 “Rs”: reduce, reuse, recycle.
Alfredo & Isabel Aquilizan, DWELL/IN/PLACE, 2024
Alfredo Juan (b. 1962) and Isabel (b. 1965) Aquilizan produce their art in a process of collection and collaboration. Working with the Fruitjuice Factory Studio, the artists have created a participatory installation that invites visitors to show how they imagine a home, meaning a familiar place where we develop a sense of ourselves and what we belong to. Spanning two rooms, it asks questions about roots, migration, identities and communities. The ever-growing artwork is based on hundreds of cardboard houses built with children from all over Saxony.
