...Momentum 5th Nordic Biennial of Contemporary Art

Eds. Elin Maria Olaussen, Eivind Slettemås

“What is one to do with the term which in one breath conjures images of saunas, designer clad children and a wood paneled trendy bar (which incidentally boasts a moose with sunglasses as a logo)? The research leading up to the Favored Nations exhibition emerged out of the inevitable discourse that every biennial is faced with – the negotiation between the local and the global and questions around belonging, identity and outward representation. Would our resources be put to best use by creating a global platform and by making Momentum an internationally biennial, or would it be wiser to focus our energies on more of a local exhibition including perhaps just the Nordic countries?Whilst the Nordic ‘brand’ as embodied in the passage above may not be a vision that is of much interest to artists ‘on ground’, it
 seemed unavoidable in the context of Momentum – historocally a Nordic biennial. Besides, with the most prominent cultural 
export in the visual arts context being the Venice Biennial, which has historically seen a strong message of a unified Nordic identity, 
as curators our first job was clearly going to be to engage with the problematic issue of Nordic identity (or the lack of it).”

Curators statement, Lina Džuverovic and Stina Högkvist