The program explores different notions of the `unseen´ - as often categorised or dismissed as non-visible or non-existent- by the ways how we look at things or -rather- choose what we look at, and proposes other sensibilities to think about the world. Departing from recent events in Brazil and worldwide, the program seeks to investigate the idea of ‘publicness’ and the tensions that arise from increasing exploitation of urban and natural space. The Bienal serves as the venue for creation and research, implementing the educational model of the “school” as a form of mental theater capable of creating new horizons for action, production and reflection.
Bik Van der Pol understand artistic practice as strategy for emancipation and a potential response to public issues. The recent occupations of public squares worldwide, the increasing exploitation of private information, and the large migration movements demonstrate space as urgency, as a site of conflict over rights, information, relations and objects.
Turning a Blind Eye emphasizes on the temporary visibility, the 'visible bundling' of learning practice as the production of future capital, united in a temporary structure that not only accommodates these dynamics but also renders them as language to be made visible and voices to be made heard; a space where learning, looseness, and focused experiences are anticipated in continuous changing dynamics. The program aims to generate an engaged public for its activities by involving the participation of those involved in the Bienal (for instance the large group of educators), the general public, and students of the School of Missing Studies and universities and organisations in Sao Paulo. Educators together with the public changed the short statements on the live scoreboard on a daily basis. Increasingly these statements became more political, more critical, as well as more poetic.
See also Facebook, and Program Turning a Blind Eye at 31st Bienal of Sao Paulo