“Fabrik” touring with the Biennial Pavilion
The Journeying Pavilion

If they can’t come to us... “Fabrik” is sending the artistic positions of the German Pavilion at the 2015 Vienna Biennial on a world tour. Together with Goethe-Institut the wandering exhibition will show works by five international artists on the themes of work, migration and revolt. The first stop will be made at the Sursock Museum in Beirut.
 

“Fabrik” (Factory) was the name of the German Pavilion at the 2015 Vienna Biennial. It was curated for the first time by a photographic art expert, Florian Ebner, who reflects with the selected works on the themes of work, migration and revolt. The exhibition space transforms itself into a virtual factory of our networked world, a defunct Egyptian factory and a factory for political narratives.

video installations, a documentary essay and a performance installation

The aim is to think about the “material and political nature of pictures in the digital age and a globalized world,” Ebner said while presenting the participating artists. The conceptual artist Olaf Nicolai, the filmmaker Hito Steyerl, the photographer Tobias Zielony and the artist duo Jasmina Metwaly and Philip Rizk from Cairo created video installations, a documentary essay and a performance installation for the exhibition.

questions about social participation

 All of the works now being presented at Sursock Museum in Beirut are united by the concept of circulation; circulation of images, people, money and goods.

Hito Steyerl "Factory of the Sun" | Photo: Hito Steyerl They also ask questions about social participation. What freedom does each of us have in a world where the Internet leads us to believe it is a wonderful form of participation? What are forms of protest and reporting? What form will our future images possess? There will be very different answers to these questions in the various stops of the travelling exhibition. The launch in Beirut will be followed by stopovers in Mumbai and Tbilisi.