What kind of biennale?

Inledningsvis vil jeg unskylde meg for at jeg skriver på engelsk. Det går fortere bare.

So the question, after "To Biennale or Not To Biennale" (if the answer was yes), must be; "What kind of biennale for Bergen?"  The question seems to me to be of vital importance if a biennale in Bergen is to establish itself as a viable addition to the overcrowded assembly of international art events and if it is to survive and thrive beyond the initial phase of establishing and announcing its presence.

As was observed at the conference, Bergen as an art city is relatively well positioned to develop such an initiative, having good existing institutions and an active local milieu. Bergen is also in the situation where it can (and should!) learn from, and avoid, mistakes made elsewhere. By now there can be little faith remaining in the potential of Momentum to become an important and sustainable biennale. It is in the wrong place to begin with, and beyond the disadvantages of location, it has so far signally failed to establish or develop an aesthetic or discursive agenda that can ignite interest across a broader spectrum of the artworld. I will freely admit that I can not specifically comment upon Momentum 2009 as I did not see it, but on the basis of my experience of previous editions of the event, I can not see Momentum as a model worth pursuing further.

And then there was LIAF. It had one great advantage over Momentum, in that Lofoten is a place a lot of people might be interested in visiting, whereas Moss is not. But then the remoteness of Svolvær, the lack of local infrastructure for a biennale and the extremely limited scale of the event, imposed both by economy and other resources, has meant that, at best, LIAF has done no more than limp from one festival to the next, without ever being able to consolidate its position.

Now Trondheim is about to join the fray, with not just one, but two potential biennales. One of these is under the auspices of the Academy (part of NTNU) and is intended to focus specifically on emerging artists with a background in the Nordic art education system. As I d o not know anything more than the bare bones of the project at this point, it is difficult to form any opinion. The other Trønder newcomer is Meta Morf, a proposed biennale for art and technology (or technologically-oriented art) that is being launched in October 2010 by TEKS (Trondheim Electronic Arts Centre). TEKS already has solid experience from arranging Trondheim Matchmaking, an annual festival/exhibition and seminar or conference, that ran through most of the last decade and ended in 2009. TEKS director Espen Gangvik (together with myself) was also one of the organizers of "Screens", a large exhibition and festival of electronic art that took place at several venues in Trondheim during the 1000 year jubilee in 1997. TEKS has a network locally and internationally, within the digital arts/technological arts milieu, and also within the field of technological research.

As a potential biennale, Meta Morf has the advantage that it addresses a specific area of practice within contemporary culture, and in that respect, is not simply one more biennale. There are of course many international events that are built around the art/technology matrix, and Meta Morf will need to establish its own profile relative to that field. Its major disadvantage, like that of Momentum, is location. Trondheim does not have, and maybe will never get, the kind of density of local infrastructure that supports an active and potentially expanding contemporary art milieu. Neither is the city a "tourist magnet" in the way that Bergen is and Svolvær may be. The greatest challenge, therefore, will be to attract a significant audience beyond the "hard core" of enthusiasts who will be drawn to an event like Meta Morf.

So the Bergen Biennale, if it is to be, must establish a profile from the very outset, then build upon this consequently in coming years in order to create an identity and a unique place within the larger context of the international art field. The specific Local-Global discourse that LIAF attempted to posit as agenda for its last edition will probably not work for Bergen, and the "Nordic Biennale" profile of Momentum is not a mantle to be taken on lightly. A suggestion raised during the conference last September was that Bergen could be the locus for a kind of "expert think tank" of biennale curators - but this will never fly. Why would any local or national funding agency support an event with such a narrow agenda? It seems clear that a substantial proportion of Bergen's active art milieu would welcome an event that brought significant and interesting artists/art projects to the city within a framework that both allowed and actively encouraged contact, dialogue, co-operation and debate. I would contend that by avoiding the "goldfish bowl effect" that is characteristic of many international biennales, Bergen could establish a model that would be both interesting and valuable for local actors and visitors alike - at a professional level. The next tough question has to do with audience development. A biennale with no audience will have a very short life. A comparison that sets things in perspective; the Sydney biennale attracts a number of visitors that is close to 25% of the population of the city of Sydney itself. And the population of Sydney is equivalent to the entire population of Norway. There are mountains to be climbed, literally and metaphorically.