A Goodbye Letter, A Love Call, A Wake-Up Song
Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement 2021
November 12, 2021–January 30, 2022
The celebrated Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement returns to Geneva from November 12, 2021 through January 30, 2022 in a new edition co-curated by DIS and Andrea Bellini.
Designed to have both an offline and online presence, BIM’21 will entirely transform the spaces of the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève into a hotel-like universe where the boundaries between fiction and reality completely evaporate. The result is an immersive exhibition where the real becomes a strange mental space and the digital inevitably seeps into reality.
While the works themselves are anchored in the exhibition space and centered on screens, they will occupy decidedly different moments, inhabiting online platforms and, in two cases, urban space beyond the Centre, where they will inhabit Geneva’s Léman Express train stations for a year. Many of the exhibition’s works, moreover, are thought of as pilot projects or in series.
Overall, the works commissioned and produced by the Centre for BIM’21 embrace a positive political drive, a shared urge to imagine worlds that differ from the one we live in, and a creative refusal to accept the status quo. They also encapsulate the fluctuating nature of the contemporary moving image. Although the projects are distinct in style and the contexts in which they were created, a common thread emerges in their continuous exercise of doubt. The artists do not intend to indicate the precise location of reality but rather to suggest, through absurdity or paradox, various places where the truth itself is absent.
The exhibition features works by Emily Allan & Leah Hennessey, Theo Anthony, Riccardo Benassi, Will Benedict & Steffen Jørgensen, Hannah Black & Juliana Huxtable & And Or Forever, DIS, Giulia Essyad, Simon Fujiwara, GRAU, Mandy Harris Williams, Camille Henrot, Sabrina Röthlisberger Belkacem, Akeem Smith, and TELFAR.
The Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement online
The Centre inaugurated the 5th floor—a digital extension of its physical spaces—just in time for the previous Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement, BIM 2018. The platform has proven an effective way for the institution to produce, promote, and distribute moving image works and make them accessible to all throughout the year.
For this edition of BIM, the 5th floor will serve as the exhibition’s complimentary venue with a dedicated program featuring former projects by DIS and other artists represented in BIM’21.
A new podcast hosted by Federico Campagna will also explore the question of methodology in art with guests such as Will Benedict, Nora Khan, Julia Watson, and others.
Access the 5th floor
An event anchored in Geneva’s history and urban development
One of the first events of its kind, the Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement was founded in 1985 in Geneva and was reinvented in 2014 as a platform for producing new works. Since then, it has made a significant contribution to enriching the audiovisual collections of the Canton and the City of Geneva, notably in the framework of the Mire project.
The Mire artistic program, a leading project of the Fonds cantonal d’art contemporain Genève (FCAC), displays audiovisual works in the new train stations of the Léman Express, with the aim of incorporating art into the region’s urban development.
On the occasion of BIM’21, Giulia Essyad (whose work is on view at the Chêne-Bourg station) and Riccardo Benassi (Geneva-Champel station) will present their original works, which were co-produced by the Centre and the FCAC.