Ofri Cnaani
Embodied Futures: Political Imagination for Shared Spaces
4. – 16. 8. 25
At this point, we know the feeling all too well. Everything matters, all the time. Exhausted by the never-ending wars and endless scrolling, our bodies are completely worn out, and our nervous systems are stuck in a state of emergency. Too often, we feel like we “can’t see a future.”
This course views imagination not as an individual disposition but as a shared and generative process. It focuses on cultivating political imagination through embodied, visual, and spatial practices. Through workshops and collective encounters, participants will explore the fragile connections between urbanism’s (often contested) pasts, presents, and potential futures. They will develop performative and speculative methods to reimagine shared spaces – moving beyond the calculated and predictable toward futures that are possible, plausible, and even preposterous.
Like a public laboratory, the studio emphasizes the potential of performative and visual tools to inspire imagination as a collective act. Through experimental explorations, participants will engage with the complex relationships between body, data, and public space, fostering the creation of social technologies that challenge prevailing norms and propose transformative visions for living bodies in urban environments. By employing somatic and collaborative practices, participants will critically examine how their bodies are regulated by emerging data landscapes and develop tools to provoke critical questions and reimagine the political and social potential of public space.
Information
- Venue
- Hohensalzburg Fortress
- Date
- 4. – 16. 8. 25
- Teaching language
- English (Hebrew possible)
- Participation fee
- 670 Euro (reduced 495 Euro)
- Requirements
- None: artist, architects, designers, dancers, programmers, performance-makers and writers are welcome.
- What to bring
- Bring yourself and your favorite thinking and making tools.
- Maximum number of participants
- 20
Ofri Cnaani
Ofri Cnaani is an artist and researcher who works across media and performance. Cnaani writes about data and coloniality, digital contested heritage, and performance as a model for creating critical technology. She is a visiting professor at the Institute of Visual Culture, TU Wien, Austria, and a research fellow at the International Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA) at the University of Amsterdam. In 2022, she completed her doctoral studies at Goldsmiths, University of London. Until recently, Cnaani was an associate lecturer at the Visual Cultures Department, Goldsmiths, University of London. Cnaani’s work has appeared at Tate Britain, UK; Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC; Inhotim Institute, Brazil; Israel Museum; Amos Rex Museum, Helsinki; Kiasma Museum, Helsinki; PS1/MoMA, NYC; BMW Guggenheim Lab, NYC; The Fisher Museum of Art, L.A.; Twister, Network of Lombardy Contemporary Art Museums, Italy; Herzliya Museum of Art, Israel; Moscow Biennial; The Kitchen, NYC; Bronx Museum of the Arts, NYC; Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna; Arnolfini Foundation Museum, Bristol; Tel Aviv Museum; Prague Triennial, among others. Prior to her move to London, Cnaani was based in New York City, where she was a faculty at the School of Visual Arts’ Visual and Critical Studies programme. At SVA Cnaani founded the programme “City as Site: Performance + Social interventions.” In 2022 she completed a video with the International Space Station (ISS). Since 2021, Cnaani has co-organised Choreographic Devices, a three-day choreographic symposium at ICA, London.
Website
Exhibitions
Selected exhibitions and performances:
2023 Museum of Contemporary Arts (MAC), Santiago. Centro de Exposiciones SUBTE, Montevideo. Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv (IL). Rampa, Porto (PT).
2022 Triskel Arts Center, Cork (IE).
2021 Austrian Pavilion, 17th Venice Architecture Biennale, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice (IT). Petach Tikva Museum of Art, Petah Tikva (IL).
2019 Amos Rex Museum, Helsinki. Sir John Soane Museum, London.
2018 Performing Architecture-Programme by the Goethe Institute, La Biennale die Venezia, Venice. Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, Miami, FL (US).
2017 Tate Britain, London. Art Museum of the University of Memphis, Memphis, TN (US). The Nathan Cummings Foundation, New York, NY (US).
2016 Kisama Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki.
2015 Inhotim Institute, Brumadinho (BR). Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Dallas Arts District, Dallas, TX (US).
2013 Seven Words, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY.
2012 Princeton University and Rutgers University. Fisher Museum of Art at USC, Los Angeles, CA (US).
2010 PS1/MoMA, NY. Moscow Biennial, Moskau.
2009 Twister, Network of Lombardy Contemporary Art Museums, Mailand (IT).
