The idea of holding a biennial of the Bergamo territory emerged in the summer of 2022 while visiting documenta fifteen, curated by the ruangrupa collective. The project was inspired by the image of the lumbung: a communal granary used to store harvested produce. In the Indonesian tradition, the lumbung carries a meaning that goes beyond the mere storage function: it is a symbol of sharing, cooperation, and mutual support. In line with this vision, there was a strong presence of group practices in the Kassel exhibition. Indeed, the edition involved more than fifty collectives from different parts of the world, many of them active in social, educational, and community practices.
Revolutionary on the ontological level (by way of interrogating the very notion of authorship), experimental on the organizational level, and radical in its political vision, the lumbung nevertheless accepted the compromise of the biennial format—which in the case of documenta extends the waiting period between one edition and the next to five years—while filling a circumscribed territory over a limited period of time—the few months that the event lasts—with a huge amount of resources and production.
For some time now, biennial formats have been under the spotlight due to the considerable problems they generate in terms of sustainability, on a par with all major events that advocate global mobility and the transfer of greater or lesser hordes of people. This is certified by the program Mending the Shores: Transforming Biennials for a Sustainable Future, the general assembly of the IBA, the international association of art biennials—chaired by Hoor Al Qasimi—which I was invited to attend as a speaker to present the alternative experience of “Thinking Like a Mountain.”
Today there are questions not only about how to reduce the environmental impact of art exhibitions, but also how to ensure that such initiatives can have lasting effects on the territories that host them. It therefore reflects on how to reduce the carbon footprint, but also on how to ensure that the addressing of global issues, typical of international festivals, does not dilute local narratives and the culture of the territories.
‘Nobody lives everywhere. Everybody lives somewhere‘. So writes Donna Haraway in her celebrated 2016 essay, Staying with the Trouble, reflecting on the ‘situated’ nature of knowledge. Haraway criticises the idea of a ‘view from nowhere’, which implies a neutral, objective or all-encompassing perspective, unaffected by any particular position or context. The philosopher reminds us that our understanding of the world is always shaped by the specific environments and conditions in which we live. This also emphasises the importance of recognising and valuing different perspectives, as everyone experiences the world differently depending on where they live.
“Thinking Like a Mountain” aspires to offer a contribution of experiences revolving around the process of revising biennial formats, basing its planning on three principles in contrast with the established ones: “more localized,” “long-term,” and “scaled.” “The Orobie Biennial,” as we might now rebaptize the program developed by GAMeC in collaboration with the communities of the extended territory of Bergamo, is an event held not every two years but rather for two years. It is one that does not happen in a place, but with a place, staging projects arising from the encounter between international artists and local communities on a scale that is not “the bigger the better” but variable in respect of the scale of each individual context.
The Bergamo territory is referred to as “Orobian” by virtue of the pre-alpine range that embraces it. Orobian is in fact the area that extends from the mountain arc of the Orobie Alps to the Bergamo plain and thus also includes the Brembana, Seriana, Scalve, and Imagna valleys. “The Orobie Biennial” therefore embraces the desire to narrate this area, this ecosystem of both human and non-human communities, in a non-canonical and non-iconic form, capitalizing on the heritage of experiences shared during the pandemic, with the commitment not to abandon the reflections elaborated during that period, one so fertile and with good intentions for the future, keeping their memory alive and adapting them to the course of time.
Lorenzo Giusti
