01 Dec 2016

Call for applications: The Institute of Things to Come

The Institute of Things to Come
February 7th –October 15th, 2017

Application deadline: 15th December 2016


Bedwyr Williams | Kapwani Kiwanga | Alicia Framis | Louise Hervé & Chloé Maillet

Curated by Ludovica Carbotta & Valerio Del Baglivo

Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo presents The Institute of Things to Come, a temporary research centre on futurological scenarios proposing a series of four solo exhibitions and an educational program, from February to September 2017. The Institute of Things to Come is realized thanks to the grant ORA! from Compagnia di San Paolo.

The project takes inspiration from H. G. Wells' novel, The Shape of Things to Come, where the author transforms his personal vision of the future into a fictitious historical chronicle while narrating the story of the world from 1933, year of publication, to 2106. With these premises, along with the notion of 'fiction as critique,' the aim of The Institute of Things to Come is to investigate the ways we project forward our desires, fears and expectations, by training under unknown existential conditions and by imagining alternatives to what already exists.

The Institute of Things to Come has invited the artists Bedwyr Williams, Kapwani Kiwanga, Alicia Framis and Louise Hervé & Chloé Maillet to each present a work able to foreshadow possible future scenarios during four solo exhibitions. Inspired by sci-fi cinematographic techniques and academic speculations, these worst-case scenarios, mutable identities, underwater worlds and reversed political orders overlay onto familiar realities and scientific theories, affecting them to a state of precariousness. Along with the exhibition program, each artist will conduct a workshop in collaboration with another guest, an artist or a field professional, able to legitimize the fictional scenarios presented in the works and use them as actual basis to a discussion on potential circumstances.

The educational program of The Institute of Things to Come will be open to 12 international students (artists, curators, researchers, writers, etc.), selected through an open call. Three merit-based scholarships will be awarded and cover fees and accommodation costs. Submission deadline for application is December 15, 2016. For more information on exhibition program, individual courses and application procedures, please visit theinstituteofthingstocome.com.



9/02-26/03/2017
Bedwyr Williams – Echt
Opening 9 February 2017
Workshop 7 –10 February

Artist Bedwyr Williams is interested in worst-case scenarios and their effect on people. His performances, films and installations often involve comic narratives about dystopian futures, in which serious concerns are undercut by moments of absurd humor or banal observations. For his solo show in Turin, he will present Echt a film installation depicting a dystopian near future in which a fast-track feudal system has left the country divided among new chieftains. In this new world where social status is determined by consumption, compulsive accumulators are kings. Bedwyr Williams will also lead a workshop in collaboration with artist Tai Shani exploring various representations of the 'Demonic Self'. The workshop will incorporate, costume and prop making, monologue writing and culminates in a film which draws from past personal and shameful experiences to ultimately project an emancipated demonic version of the self into the future. The magnificent city of Turin will function as theatrical backdrop to construct a malevolent self-portrait


13/04-14/05/2017
Kapwani Kiwanga – Afrogalactica
Opening 13 April 2017
Workshop 11 –14 April 2017

Influenced by earlier studies in anthropology, the work of Kapwani Kiwanga often merges together fiction and historical facts. Using video, sound and performance, Kiwanga produces research-based investigations that revisit history, crafting new stories from subjective perspectives, storytelling, science fiction and popular culture. She is also interested in different approaches to embodiment in art, most notably in her Afrogalactica, a trilogy project (2011–on-going), where the fictional character of an anthropologist from the future ranges across vast fields of knowledge relating to Afrofuturism, historical liberation movements, and African astronomy. Kiwanga reflects on some major themes taken from her research on Afrofuturism and its role in the development of the yet-to-be-created United States of Africa Space Agency. For The Institute of Things to Come, Kiwanga will conduct a workshop in collaboration with writer and curator Mirene Arsanios, exploring the past, present and future responses to technological development in relation to society with an eye on cultural productions, which are often overlooked when talking about the future.


21/06-30/07/2017
Alicia Framis – Where did the future go?
Opening 21 June, 2017
Workshop 20- 23 June 2017

Alicia Framis develops platforms for creative social interaction, often through interdisciplinary collaboration with other artists and specialists across various fields. In her projects she focuses on different aspects of human existence within contemporary urban society. At The Institute of Things to Come, Alicia Framis will present her film titled Where did the future go? addressing the never-ending search for the future of human life. The film was shot in the bizarre 'moon landscape' of Utah's desert region, together with five researchers from the Mars Society, where the artist spent several weeks simulating ways of living on Mars and professionally testing the products from the Moonlife Concept Store (a pop-up project featuring products and objects that represent future human life in space). In April, she will co-lead her workshop dedicated to future architecture, urban life and its social relations, with Lilet Breddels Director of Archis Foundation, a cultural think tank devoted to the study of real-time cultural and political changes in urban settings.


14/09-15/10/2017
Louise Hervé & Chloé Maillet - The Waterway
Opening 14 September 2017
Workshop 12 –15 September 2017

The duo Louise Hervé & Chloé Maillet is interested in amateur archaeology and science-fiction. By weaving together historical facts, autobiographical data, excerpts of science-fiction films and books, they build stories, which amalgamate relevant coincidences from the past, as well as predictions of the future. Their film, The Waterway, combines marine archaeology, thalassotherapy, forgotten civilizations, the issue of immortality, and of post-humanity, offering a contemporary and poetic vision of an aquatic fantasy. The film is built around three narratives, aiming to uncover and document the imagination tied to the element of water as an object and conservation source for the body. In collaboration with a marine ethologist, in September they will lead a workshop inspired by Sergio Martino's film Island of the Fishmen. The workshop explores underwater archaeology and the fantasy of an eternal subaquatic life in relation to the reality of the conflicts between the human and non-human world in the Mediterranean area.