The Prelude to the Baltic Triennial 13 unveils what often remains invisible: a range of intentions, engagements, research and emotions. The purpose is to make public what nurtured the Triennial: its poetry section (words, rhythms, thoughts / poetry, music, theory), a crucial part of the project, if not its core. The Baltic Triennial 13 considers poetry as a bastard language, escaping normative linguistic categories and refusing appropriation from the standard exchange system by instituting itself as a transient form, at once dramatically individualist and profoundly collective.

The Prelude to the Baltic Triennial 13 highlights its political stance while acting as a poetic gesture: we will address class, gender, race, disabled bodies, feminism, decolonisation of desire, and territories, eager to transcend the fixed notion of identity to embrace the moving concept of belonging. Where do we belong? How do we belong? Key postulates will guide us: bastard objects and formless subjectivities, anti-categorisation and fluidity.

By doing so, we start by using the museum (and its economy) to offer up an alternative to the use of words by those who hold the monopolistic power to speak and colonise our horizons with their permanent logorrhea. We give a space to those who are still often silenced. By doing so, we position language (written and spoken) and knowledge engagement as the starting point of the Triennial: the Prelude will be an open and free platform where readings, talks, symposia, discussions, debates will take place in an installation especially designed by Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė (Young Girl Reading Group). The Prelude will not arrive at a conclusion: the research will continue up to and beyond the opening of the Triennial in May 2018.

With: Harry Burke, Anaïs Duplan, Penny Goring, Tarek Lakhrissi, Maria Minerva, Moor Mother, NON Worldwide, Precious Okoyomon, Planningtorock, Jackie Wang, Liv Wynter, Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė (Young Girl Reading Group)


Curated by: Vincent Honoré, assisted by Neringa Bumblienė and Cédric Fauq