Monday, September 8, 2008

8th PANAMA BIENNIAL



Francis Alÿs, Abner Benaim, Enrique Castro Ríos, Donna Conlon, Sam Durant, Aurélien Froment, Mario García Torres, Jonathan Harker, Joachim Koester, Jonathan Monk, Roman Ondak, Rich Potter, Sean Snyder, Michael Stevenson, Mungo Thomson, Humberto Vélez and Ramón Zafrani

Curated by Magali Arriola

When entering the territories of the former North American Canal Zone in Panama, many questions arise out of the living memories and remains of place whose identity has still to be negotiated on a daily basis. What used to be known as the Canal Zone – an area that was simultaneously a military reservation, a company town and a colony that has only recently started to show the first symptoms of local re-appropriation – seems to exist today as an apocryphal memory nourished by the nostalgia of those who occupied its lands, and as a geographical ghost that embodies Panama's colonial and post-colonial history. Eight years after Panama recovered complete sovereignty over that controversial piece of land, the 8th Panama Art Biennial deals with the former American Canal Zone as a historical marker, triggering a reflection on its recent social and political history through the lenses of contemporary visual arts.

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