manifesto of fragility

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The 16th Lyon Biennale: manifesto of fragility positions fragility at the heart of a generative form of resistance that is emboldened by the past, responsive to the present and primed for the future. In acknowledging fragility as one of few universally felt truths in our divided world, the Biennale assembles a host of creative practices and objects spanning two millennia that variously speak to the vulnerabilities of people and places, past and present, near and far. Conceived as a collective statement authored through word, image, sound and movement by 200 artists and creatives, it calls on a community of resilient voices to draft a manifesto for a world that is blamelessly fragile. The Biennale is structured around three distinct yet inter-connected layers, where fragility and resistance are explored through the lens of the individual, the city, and the world respectively.

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Conceived by curators Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath as a “manifesto of fragility”, the Biennale positions fragility at the heart of a generative form of resistance that is emboldened by the past, responsive to the present, and primed for the future.

The 16th Lyon Biennale elevates its perspective to a meta-historical panorama through significant loan and from many of Lyon’s leading cultural institutions, such as the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon, the Lugdunum Museum and Roman theatres, and the Musées Gadagne.

With the conviction that dialogue is crucial for a more equitable and sustainable future, the Biennale will begin to unfold several months before the September 2022 opening in Lyon through collaborations with several partnering institutions in cities internationally that will continue until the end of 2023.

 

Lyon

The 16th edition of the Lyon Biennale takes cues from Lyon’s complexly layered histories. Rising from the foundations of Lugdunum, on the echoes of Napoleon’s declaration of love to the Lyonnais, out of the flickering images of the Lumière brothers’ actualités, and from the obscure tale of Louise Brunet’s perilous journey to the silk factories of Mount Lebanon, the destiny of Lyon is marked by the particularities of its people and the traces of their experiences that enrich the lives of those who come to know the city today.

The 16th Lyon Biennale invokes these histories to inform an exploration of fragility that searches for connections beyond the limits of geography and time.