NSK State Pavilion

NSK State in Time is delighted to announce the launch of the NSK State Pavilion, occurring in the context of the 57th Venice Biennale, opening with an inaugural lecture by prolific philosopher, psychoanalyst and critic Slavoj Žižek.

NSK State in Time was founded by artist collective Neue Slovenische Kunst (NSK) in 1992. It was conceived as a utopian formation, which would have no physical territory and would not be identified with any existing nation state. Along with organising temporary embassies and consulates in cities such as Moscow, Berlin, Florence, Sarajevo and New York, NSK State in Time began issuing passports in 1993. There are currently about 15,000 NSK Passport holders around the world, with citizens including including Marina Abramović, John Baldessari, Boris Groys, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Slavoj Žižek.

The NSK State Pavilion will provide an added and new dimension to NSK State in Time, built upon a collaboration with migrant communities, humanitarian protection applicants, and stateless individuals who are looking for new citizenship. With the unique opportunity of the Venice Biennale, the project aims to rethink what a contemporary state can be, offering an open form of citizenship which contrasts with that generated by spatially-defined states.

The Pavilion will engage with a range of issues that most trouble current contemporary states – migration, citizenship, heritage and identity – and generate ideas from a wide spectrum of individuals about how to build new collectivities and shared histories across national borders, looking beyond Europe’s current fragmentation and inner antagonisms.

Commissioned by artist collective IRWIN (Dušan Mandič, Miran Mohar, Andrej Savski, Roman Uranjek and Borut Vogelnik), the project is curated by Zdenka Badovinac and Charles Esche, and is directed by Mara Ambrožič. In total it will involve contributions from more than 200 individuals, including citizens of NSK State in Time, artists, philosophers, students, young art professionals, cultural institutions, social cooperatives, and international universities.

NSK citizen and contemporary artist Ahmet Öğüt has been invited to shape the installation of the Pavilion, where the notion of state, and the definition of citizenship and its related bureaucracy, are questioned through the conceptual and physical experience of gravity.

Commissioners: IRWIN (Dušan Mandič, Miran Mohar, Andrej Savski, Roman Uranjek and Borut Vogelnik)

Curators: Zdenka Badovinac, Charles Esche

Project Director: Mara Ambrožič

Installation: Ahmet Öğüt

Artists:
The NSK Delegates were: Bisan Abu Eisheh, Ahmed Adelian, Ashok Adicéam, Azra Aksamija, Lauren Alexander (Foundland Collective), Bilal Alkatout , Ammar Alkhatib, Jawad Al Malhi, Samer Arquawi, Kazem Ashourzadeh , Wali Askarzay, Djordje Balzamović, Javier Barrios, Dorian Batycka, Seren Başoğul, Bianca Bondi, Candice Breitz, Nawal Chagar, Oliver Chanarin, Quendrese Deda, Burak Dkilitaş, Claudio Donadel, Abdoul-Ganiou Dermani, Safia Dickersbach,, Esra Dogan, Aljoša Dujmić, Roza El-Hassan, Ghalia Elsrakbi (Foundland Collective), Mounir Fatmi, Amir Fattal, Michael Fehr, Five women from Afganistan as collective, Becket Flannery, Jeanno Gaussi, Kendell Geers, Jingxin Geng, Laura Serejo Genes, Sarah Haddou, Anawana Haloba, Hamid, Hasan Hasan, Hands Off Our Revolution, Velija Hasanbegović, Winnie Herbstein, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Agata Kochaniewicz, Komunal, Don Lawrence, Sara Lunacek, Dr Andrew Lane, Delaine Le Bas, Stine Marie Jacobsen, Laetitia Jeurissen, Youssef Limoud, Mahmoud Maktabi, Siavash Maraghechi, Mpole Samuel Masemola, Sithabile Mlotshwa, Sohrab Mohebbi, Wagma Momand, Victor Mutelekesha, Raafat Majzoub, Wafa Mari, Mohammed Mzaill, Ramen Naqshbandi, Christian Nyampeta, Olu Oguibe, Shafiq Omar, Reyhane Omidghaemi, Ahmet Öğüt, Danny Pagarani, Mario Pissara, Ognjen Radivojević, Payman Quasimian, Ugochukwu-Smooth Nzewi, Lotte Schreiber, Megan Schwartz, Sejernader, Lerato Shadi, Shahin, Adnan Softic, Malina Suliman, Lama Takruri, Christina Thomopoulos, Leontios Toumpouris, Two women from Afganistan, Gerrie van Noord, Heidi Voet, Zahra, Vadim Zakharov, Salah Zater.

Co-production: IRWIN, NSK Informativni Center, and MGLM – Museum and galleries of Ljubljana

Parallel Project: NSK State Venice Pavilion in Vienna – Thinking Europe, open on May 16, 2017