“We have the chance to shape a common future”
Çağla Ilk, curator of the German pavilion at the Art Biennale in Venice in 2024, talks about the role of art in times of war and crises.
Klaus Lüber ,
10.04.2024 
Ms Ilk, the biennale will begin in Venice on 20 April. You gave the German offering the title “Thresholds”. Which thresholds are we talking about here?
These are transitions that six artists will be talking about at two venues at this year’s exhibition. In terms of their content, these are positions that are located on the threshold of our present, defined as it is by uncertainty and crises, and from there look back to the past and ahead to the future, though also at territorial constructs. In addition, we have social and identity-based thresholds such as those experienced by people with a migrant background. I myself came to Germany 20 years ago and still regard myself as being on the threshold - in terms of both my national sense of belonging and my position in society.
What image of Germany do you wish to convey?
As far as I am concerned, the notion of tying one’s identity to a particular country at all is no longer relevant. Many of my predecessors saw the German pavilion as an opportunity to critically engage with German history. Though that is also important to me, I do so by following a multiperspectival, transcultural and transdisciplinary approach.
What do you mean by that?
We already live in a post-migrant society. It is no longer a question of whether we need migration but of how we negotiate it politically. That’s why it was important to me to select artists who would encompass a wide range of biographies and perspectives.
Art gives us freedoms and space that we urgently need just now: as a platform on which to bring people together.
To what extent can and should art have any political impact?
Art gives us freedoms and space that we urgently need just now: as a platform on which to bring people together and reach out to them emotionally and in terms of specific issues. Thresholds not only indicate dividing lines but also offer an opportunity to transcend them. And thus the chance to shape a common future.
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Çağla Ilk has been co-director of Kunsthalle Baden-Baden since 2020. Previously she worked as a dramaturge at the Maxim Gorki Theatre in Berlin. Born in Istanbul, the curator and architect pursues transdisciplinary work that encompasses the visual arts, architecture, sound, theatre and performance.
