Rirkrit Tiravanija

Do we dream under the same sky

Though written out, without a question mark at the end of the sentence, itʼs only an opening to an idea.

In the past years, with the Global pandemic and the exertion of White Supremacy tendencies in the US as well as Nationalists Populist in many parts of the global world, Iʼd like for the exhibition to refocus our mindset and perspectives.

With many of these thoughts in mind, Iʼd like the potential of Okayama Art Summit 2022 to be focused on peripheral practices by artists who may share in common their itinerant backgrounds. BY “itinerant,” I mean that most of the artists in this selection are coming from cultural and social backgrounds that are diverse. Though they may have their practices and their locations in the center of western artistic hegemony, we could understand that their positioning in that ( western ) hegemony, is based on their identification with positions other than western. That their lives and histories are constructed indifferent to the west.

The dream here, is to dream in a sky of difference, in a sky of multiplicity, of narratives of representation that are peripheral to the western canon. That the dream is for us (the participants and the viewer) to experience representations, which are outside of our normative position. That the dream can open us to stories and lives and ways of thinking, looking, hearing, being, existing beyond the hopes, the aspirations, and dreams that we ourselves are touched by in our daily structures.

Rirkrit Tiravanija, Artistic Director

Okayama Art Summit 2022