Because “now” is already thick with possibilities disruptive of presence

An activity linked to the exhibition
Cable City Dance
Cable City Sea​

by Rossella Biscotti.

Rossella Biscotti and Övül Ö. Durmusoglu have had a decade-long conversation on the limits of the collective memory that make Western civilization possible and how contemporary art has become a fertile environment for renegotiating the terms and methods of historicisation. They have contributed to each other’s research significantly as artist and curator. Their first conversation in public accompanies Rossella Biscotti’s exhibition that brings together her two large-scale projects The City and The Journey both of which search for new possible societal blueprints. Rossella and Övül will speak about the different ways of interacting with this “thickness of now” in order to make more breathing space for parallel alternative narratives and imaginaries.

Anna Manubens (Barcelona, 1984) is an independent curator and producer. She is the director of the private foundation AAVC and Hangar. She was Head of Public Programmes at the CAPC - Musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux until 2017. She previously combined her activity as a curator and programmer with teaching at the Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona) and a part-time curator position at the Belgian artist-run organisation, Auguste Orts (Brussels), dedicated to the production of and thinking around artists’ films. 

Her recent exhibitions include A L I E N T O (NoguerasBlanchard, Barcelona, 2020-2021); Wendelien van Oldenborgh’s tono lengua boca (Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Madrid, 2019 and Fabra i Coats: Contemporary Art Centre of Barcelona, 2020); entre, hacia, hasta, para, por, según, sin (EACC, Castelló de la Plana, 2019); Visceral Blue (La Capella, Barcelona, 2016); Hacer cuerpo con la máquina: Joachim Koester (Blueproject Foundation, Barcelona, 2016) and Contornos de lo audiovisual with Soledad Gutiérrez (Tabakalera, San Sebastián, 2015).

She has contributed to various publications and in 2020, together with Julia Montilla she edited Hangar: Paradigmes, símptomes, prototips i projeccions a book and series of actions organised on the occasion of Hangar’s 20th anniversary. ​​

Övül Ö. Durmusoglu is a curator, writer and educator who works on constructive critiques of civilization, the sustainability of intersectional futures and practices of togetherness. She co-leads Art in Discourse at the Braunschweig University of Art. Övül has recently curated two major monographic exhibitions Portrait of a Movement by Boudry/Lorenz at CA2M, Madrid and in Tensta konsthall, Stockholm and BURN & GLOOM! GLOW & MOON! Thousand Years of Troubled Genders by Katrina Daschner at Kunsthalle Wien. She also co-curated the 3rd and 4th editions of Autostrada Biennale in Kosovo with Joanna Warsza between 2020 and 2023. Earlier she worked as a curator for the steirischer herbst festival, curated programmes for the 10th, 13th and 14th Istanbul Biennials and coordinated and organised different programmes and events for the Maybe Education and Public Programs of dOCUMENTA (13). Övül writes regularly for different magazines and various exhibition publications. She lives and works in Berlin.