Aalto ARTS alum Vidha Saumya’s artwork featured at the Venice Biennale 2024
The pleasures we choose is a multifaceted collaboration by artists Pia Lindman, Vidha Saumya, Jenni-Juulia Wallinheimo-Heimonen, curators Yvonne Billimore and Jussi Koitela, and architectural designer Kaisa Sööt.
The pleasures we choose blurs the boundaries between art, architecture, and social commentary, and brings together three artists for whom art, life, and activism are intertwined. Embraced as a collective project, the artwork evolved through the exchange of shared and individual experiences to create areas of diverse ‘occupancies’ where visitors are encouraged to reassess and (re)consider societal expectations.
Out of the artist group, Vidha Saumya is an Aalto ARTS alum, who graduated from the Visual Culture and Contemporary Art (ViCCA) programme in 2018. She is also one of the founding memebers of MiF (Museum of Impossible Forms) and co-founder and co-editor of the publication NO NIIN, together with Elham Rahmati.
Often engaging with the intricate relationship between human presence and the environment, Vidha Saumya’s work challenges the norms of aesthetics, gender, academia and nation-state. In her work, viewers encounter an interplay of desire, intimacy, and (home)land, offset by the heteronormative demands of utility, time and (dis)placement.
Venice Biennale, founded in 1895 and held biannually, is the oldest and most prestigious international forums for presenting contemporary art. Commissioning and producing the exhibition for the Aalto Pavilion of Finland, designed by architect Alvar Aalto in 1956, is Frame’s most extensive international project. Finland participates in two pavilions – the national Aalto Pavilion and the Nordic Pavilion – that are both located in the historical biennale park, Giardini di Castello.
Pavilion of Finland at the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia
Address: Pavilion of Finland, Giardini di Castello 30122
Exhibition dates: 20 April – 24 November 2024
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