Introduction to the biennale by João Laia followed by a conversation with Anne Szefer Karlsen (Stockholm)

Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art (GIBCA) in collaboration with IASPIS invites you to a presentation and conversation taking its starting point in the 12th edition of the biennial which will open to the public on 16^th of September.

João Laia, curator for GIBCA 2023, will open the program with an introduction to the curatorial theme and present the participating artists in the biennial. This is followed by a conversation between João Laia and curator Anne Szefer Karlsen, who will, among other things, delve into different perspectives on how queer curatorial practices can challenge dominant notions of time, space and body.

João Laia is the Chief Curator for exhibitions at Kiasma – Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki. He has a background in social sciences, film theory and contemporary art. Past projects were developed in collaboration with Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; Galeria Municipal do Porto; La Casa Encendida, Madrid; MAAT – Museum for Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon; Moscow Young Art Biennial, MMOMA; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Videobrasil / SESC Pompeia, São Paulo. He edited Living Encounters (Kiasma/Mousse, 2022) and A Multiple Community (SESC, 2018) and has been published in magazines such as Art Monthly, Flash Art, frieze, Mousse, Spike and Terremoto. Together with Valentinas Klimašauskas, Laia curated the fourteenth Baltic Triennial (2021) titled The Endless Frontier at the CAC – Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, and in 2024 Klimašauskas and Laia will curate the Lithuanian Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale.

Anne Szefer Karlsen is a curator, writer, editor and educator.  They is Professor of Curatorial Practice and currently programme director for MA Curatorial Practice at the Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design, University of Bergen (2015 – to date) and was Senior Adviser and Head of Research for Bergen Assembly (2018 – 2020) and Director of Hordaland Art Centre in Bergen, Norway (2008 – 2014).

Szefer Karlsen’s curatorial practice spans museum exhibitions, biennials, group and solo exhibitions as well as discursive events, gathering communities of professionals together. Their most recent exhibition was the international group exhibition ‘Experiences of Oil’, Stavanger Art Museum, November 2021 – April 2022. They have convened of several large-scale international discursive programmes, such as ‘Humans of the Institution’ (co-curated with Vivian Ziherl) at Veem House for performance, Amsterdam 25 – 27 November 2017. They was curator for Lofoten International Art Festival – LIAF 2013 (with Bassam el Baroni and Eva González- Sancho) and Associate Curator for Research and Encounters for Biennale Bénin 2012 – ‘Inventer le monde: l’artiste citoyen’ (artistic director: Abdellah Karroum).