The publishing project took shape between the spring of 2009 and 2010. Nine curators were involved in researching for the book, which was edited by Angelika Burtscher and Judith Wielander and published by Sternberg Press, Berlin.
click on the cover to download the book
The curators present recent artistic productions, all containing a critical observation of the social, cultural and political landscape they are part of and from which they draw inspiration. The result of this process is a reconnaissance tour of forty-one artistic positions involved in building or rebuilding the imagination of the present. The interdisciplinary ideas published in this volume consign to art the potential for acting and deciphering commonly acknowledged codes of the world, reinterpreting the events of history and thus guiding their influence on our future. The forty-one artistic processes described in this publication are ideal for building up hybrid, transversal, and open narratives.
9 curators
Cecilia Canziani, Anna Colin, Hu Fang, Emiliano Gandolfi, Julieta González, Raimundas Malašauskas, Mihnea Mircan, Gabi Ngcobo, and Elvira Dyangani Ose.
41 artists
Alterazioni Video, Maria Thereza Alves, Aspra.mente, Patrick Bernier and Olive Martin, Anna Best, Francisco Camacho, CAMP, Santiago Cirugeda (Recetas Urbanas), Teddy Cruz, Neil Cummings and Marysia Lewandowska, Fadaiat, Cao Fei, Frente 3 de Fevereiro, Sou Fujimoto Architects, Goldin+Senneby, Gugulective, Zheng Guogu, Jeanne van Heeswijk, Paul Ramírez Jonas, Alon Levin, Goddy Leye, Jill Magid, Darius Mikšys, Nástio Mosquito, Ciprian Muresan, Jesús Bubu Negrón, Offer and exchange, Progetto Diogene, Publink, Wanda Raimundi-Ortíz, Pedro Reyes, Anna Scalfi, Jonas Staal, Xu Tan, Javier Téllez, Tercerunquinto, Bert Theis, Ana Laura López de la Torre, Judi Werthein, Ming Wong, Mlu Zondi with an essay by Saskia Sassen.
About the author
Judith Wielander is an independent curator based in Brussels. Her curatorial research focuses on the intersection of art and social engagement. From 2002 to 2010, she was curator at Cittadellarte – Fondazione Pistoletto. In 2009, she initiated the Visible project in dialogue with Michelangelo Pistoletto, and has cocurated it since 2011 with Matteo Lucchetti. In 2010, she produced The Horror Show File, the first film in Wael Shawky’s trilogy Cabaret Crusades, which she co-initiated. Wielander was cocurator of Bordeaux Urban Art Biennale, Evento 2011, the Belgian Pavilion at the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale in 2014 and curator of Le Jardin Essentiel at Parckdesign, Brussels, in 2016. Since 2021, she is researcher and cocurator at the Expanding Academy at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp with Nico Dockx. In 2023-24 she has been Lecturer at the Decolonizing Architecture Advanced Course at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm and in 2024-25 she collaborates with the HISK, Antwerp.
