GWANGJU.- Artist Birke Gorm is representing Austria at the 16th Gwangju Biennale in 2026. Under the title the evening and the morning and the night, she has transformed the upper floor of Gwangju’s Eunam Museum of Art, both physically and conceptually, into an attic—a storage place, full of latent energies, largely left undisturbed. The exhibition is curated by Attilia Fattori Franchini and marks the second national presentation by Austria at the Gwangju Biennale.
In her artistic practice, Birke Gorm investigates the life cycle of everyday objects. Through carefully collecting, reusing, and reinterpreting materials, she examines how objects carry, lose, or acquire meaning. In doing so, she interrogates the ideological frameworks that shape how history is narrated and considers how understandings of gender, society, industrialisation, and value change over time.
The attic functions as a central motif of this year’s Austrian Pavilion. A tent-like structure of layered fabric creates a landscape of uneven spaces, low ceilings, and hidden corners. Made from repurposed textiles, the tent envelops visitors in an immersive environment resembling a place where forgotten or hidden objects are stored, where things appear static or asleep, yet reveal a life of their own when unobserved. Regarded as the mind of the house, the attic mirrors its residents’ emotional states, symbolizing the mind’s storage, repressed memories, and unprocessed emotions. In this realm of the hidden, the often-overlooked stories—especially those of women, who are frequently marginalized—are brought to the foreground as sources of resistance and resilience.
At the center of the exhibition is a selection of new and existing figurative sculptures from Birke Gorm’s ongoing series loaf of meat (2020–), huswif (2021–), sit-up (2022–), and you, you, you, you, you, you, you,... (2025–), extending the artist’s body of work and her investigation into industrial production and waste. These ambiguous bodies—exhausted, determined, protective, on a break, or on strike—are primarily composed of discarded and repurposed materials collected in Vienna and locally in Gwangju. They are arranged together to form a complex topography that invites viewers to observe, linger, and discover. By embedding familiar materials such as cardboard or rusty tools, the exhibition creates an environment where visitors might recognize objects from their own surroundings and reflect on how histories of care, labor, consumption, and disposal are inscribed in even the most ordinary things.
Through an ever-changing lighting choreography and a subtle soundscape of synthetic and everyday sounds, composed by musician Christian Ingemann, the installation shifts the space between day and night. Within this dynamic, the attic no longer appears as a static storage space, but as a living, continuously transforming environment. Rather than offering a fixed proposition, the exhibition creates space to reconsider how we work, rest, and live.
The publication tales from the attic accompanies the Austrian Pavilion, expanding the exhibition’s founding concepts across criticality and fiction. It is designed by FONDAZIONE, Vienna, and published by DISTANZ, Berlin. Further information can be found at distanz.de.
Birke Gorm (b. 1986, Hamburg, Germany) is a visual artist based in Vienna. Her approach to working with materials reflects the information that they carry and their impact on society, both past and present. She sets the autonomy of these materials in relation to traditional production techniques and the gender roles assigned to them. She is represented by Croy Nielsen, Vienna.
Attilia Fattori Franchini (b. 1983, Pesaro, Italy) is an independent curator and writer based in Vienna, where she is the founder and director of KUNSTVEREIN GARTENHAUS and director of the festival ‘curated by’.
The Austrian Pavilion is commissioned by Phileas – The Austrian Office for Contemporary Art and co-financed by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Housing, Arts, Culture, Media, and Sport. Additional support is provided by the Austrian Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs.
