Exhibition
Yalda Afsah: Every word was once an animal
25 Jun 2022 – 4 Sep 2022
Regular hours
- Monday
- Closed
- Tuesday
- 10:00 – 18:00
- Wednesday
- 10:00 – 18:00
- Thursday
- 10:00 – 18:00
- Friday
- 10:00 – 18:00
- Saturday
- 10:00 – 18:00
- Sunday
- 10:00 – 18:00
Free admission
Address
- 2 Burgring
- Graz
Steiermark - 8010
- Austria
Travel Information
- Bus line 30, stop Tummelplatz and 31, 39 stop Maiffredygasse
- Tramline 1 and 7, stop Maiffredygasse
Yalda Afsah:
Every word was once an animal
25.6.–4.9.2022
Exhibition Opening: 24.6.2022
About
Exhibition
Cooperation: Kunstverein München
The human relationship with animals, and the agency surrounding that interaction is critical to the work of the German-Iranian artist Yalda Afsah. Together with Kunstverein München, HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiemark presents her first institutional solo exhibition, focusing on questions of power, care, and control in relation to domestication. Using three examples — bullfighting, horse dressage, and pigeon breeding — she examines the blurred boundaries between affection and identification with animals on the one hand, as well as submission and human domination on the other.
Every word was once an animal is also a reference to the collapsing divide between “nature” and “culture.” It takes place during an ongoing pandemic of which the origins remain a mystery, but the prime suspect is a bat. Such zoonotic influenzas are frequently the result of a disturbed relation between the species and usually caused by the intensive breeding, slaughter, and trading of animals. This crisis is forcing us to rethink the concept of the political: nature is not merely a passive object of political influence, but a resistant agent of the social. In the works, viewers are confronted with an intimate portrait of the mutual interdependence of human and non-human protagonists. Afsah never suggests a return to “nature” is possible, but instead asks us to consider other ways in which we co-habitate.
Every word was once an animal is initiated by Kunstverein München where the exhibition is on view from January 15 to April 3, 2022, and realized in cooperation with the HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark.