Autocratic leaders are increasingly gaining power—and weakening human rights—around the world. The world is losing its way. Conflicts are raging. Inequalities are deepening. Civic space is shrinking and the media is under attack from all sides. Authoritarian countries also sense that democratic nations are not prioritising the international human rights system.
Furthermore the climate crisis is a human rights crisis that is hitting the most vulnerable as well as ecological defenders the hardest. When authoritarian governments and several world leaders are trading away human rights obligations and accountability for human rights, how artists, the art institutions and other actors in art can be active agents in countering inegalitarian, anti-democratic, authoritarian and eco-destructive forces and stand for resistance and change.
Language: EN
Bio
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Photo: Marita MuukkonenMarita Muukkonen
FI
Marita Muukkonen is Co-Founder and Co-Director of Artists at Risk (AR), Ecologists at Risk (ER) and Perpetuum Mobile (PM). She has been a curator at FRAME—Contemporary Art Finland, an editor of FRAMEWORK: The Finnish Art Review, Chairperson of the Helsinki International Artists-in-Residence Programme (HIAP) and held key functions at the Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art (NIFCA).
Muukkonen has also curated exhibitions, seminars and events at museums such as MoMA in New York, ZKM in Karlsruhe, Ludwig Museum in Budapest, Moderna Museet in Sweden, Kiasma in Finland and in biennials including the Perpetual Romani/Gypsy Pavilion (Venice 2009), The Finnish Pavilion (2009), The Arts Assembly (Manifesta 8, 2010), the Nordic Pavilion at Dak’art
Biennale (2012), the School of Displaced Persons (Kiev Biennial, 2015) and the
Athens Biennial (2015-17).As Co-Director of Perpetuum Mobile, she has co-Founded long-term thematic projects such as The Raw, The Cooked and The Packaged, Re-Aligned Project, The Arts Assembly, Pluriculturalism and PLURIversity, with several iterations in museums, biennials and artist-run spaces and festivals.
In addition, Muukkonen has also served as a member of several juries, such as the State of Art(ist) Prize at Ars Electronica. Additionally, she is a contributor to art publications and a regular speaker at international seminars and conferences. Previously, she worked as a Special Advisor in the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture and in the Arts Council of Finland.
Credits
State of the ART(ist) is a collaboration between Ars Electronica and the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
