Language lays bare how we understand the world. Words not only reflect the world we inhabit but also how we inhabit it. Just like ‘to exhibit, the verb ‘to inhabit’ has a proto-Indo-European root:  *ghabh.
There is no complete consensus, but the prevailing hypothesis is that all Indo-European languages originated from the eastern part of Ukraine. This is where about seven thousand years ago people may have uttered the word ‘*ghabh’ or something to that effect, whose triple meaning may seem paradoxical at first glance, ’to hold, to give, to receive’. But any contradiction evaporates when giving and receiving are not seen as one-directional, zero-sum exchanges but as reciprocal acts that can assume many forms.
The idea behind Anozero’26 was not to look for an external theme, but to let the theme emerge out of the exhibition itself, and, given the important architectural component of this edition, to dwell upon the essence of being in the world, as inhabiting it. It approaches the exhibition as a place that holds, gives, and receives; the artist as someone gifted with a talent that leads to art that is shared with a viewer; the habitat as a place that receives people and gives shelter.
To hold, to give, to receive reveals a reciprocity, which is aligned with Peter Kropotkin’s concept of mutual aid, and also with microbiologist Lynn Margulis’s understanding of symbiosis as the driving force of evolution and creativity.

We are living in a world in which economic disruptions are lauded as creative destruction; in which the word ‘mutual’ is less associated with mutual aid than with the spectre of mutual destruction. It is a world of gross inequalities and a concerning turn to right-wing authoritarianism. In this sense, To hold, to give, to receive is meant as a mild yet firm event of resistance, a manifesto for horizontality, mutual aid, symbiosis, and reciprocity.
Art and architecture are rarely changing the world directly, but they do so indirectly, by changing how we can see them, and how we live them, and live in them
Anozero’26 highlights art and architecture that blur the line between disciplines, and presents projects that – implicitly or explicitly – give, give back, give forward, and are receptive, to people, to interpretations. Art that is hospitable, architecture that is generous.
If art, architecture, artists and architects cannot change the world, only how we experience it, then our role as curators is to frame their views, to make visible what the art and architecture brought together for this event entail, hold in store and have to offer to visitors, and perhaps, eventually, influence their understanding of the world.

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LIST OF PARTICIPANTS

Chantal Akerman 

Christian Andersson

Jonathas de Andrade 

Vasco Araújo
arquivo mangue 

Lina Bo Bardi

Taysir Batniji

Frédéric Bruly Bouabré

Arno Brandlhuber e/and Constanze Haas

Inês Brites

Adam Broomberg e/and Rafael Gonzalez

Alberto Carneiro 

Centrala

Rui Chafes e/and Candura

Julian Charrière

Sandro Chia

Colectivo SEM-FIM

Luisa Cunha

Eva Davidova 

Thomas Demand

Forensic Architecture

Arturo Franco

Nan Goldin

Shilpa Gupta 

Inside Outside

Kosmos

Juha Lilja 

Mário Macilau 

Fina Miralles

Adriana Molder 

Office of Adrian Phiffer

Pezo von Ellrichshausen

João Salema 

Taryn Simon

Charles Stankievech

Mungo Thomson

Maria Trabulo

Pedro Vaz

Carlos Ferrand Zavala

Anarchism and Planning

Three rooms

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