River Talk II
2nd July 2026
iLiana Fokianaki is a curator, researcher and theorist based in Bern. Since April 2024 she is the director of Kunsthalle Bern, where she is developing her forthcoming research on permaculture, ecological thought and theory as tools for instituting and exhibition-making.
At River Talk II, iLiana will present her work on water and migration. Since 2020, through the research platform "The Bureau of Care" she examines the concept of care and how its politics and ethics relate to environmental and social justice. Founder and Director of State of Concept Athens *2013-2024, she changed the landscape of the Athenian art scene, bringing to the Greek capital exhibitions by artists such as Laure Prouvost, Sanja Iveković, Forensic Architecture, Kader Attia, Kapwani Kiwanga and others. She has curated exhibitions for international institutions such as Reina Sofia Museo in Madrid, e-flux New York, KADIST Foundation, Kunstinstituut Melly Rotterdam, Museum of Contemporary Art Ljubljana and has curated public projects for institutions such as the Vera List Center for Art and Politics in New York. Fokianaki regularly lectures at academies, independent spaces, museums and institutions around the world while organising discussions and talks with thinkers such as Silvia Federici, Trinh T. Minh-Ha, Jodi Dean, Yanis Varoufakis and others. In 2022-2023, she was the artistic director of Survival Kit 13, a large-scale contemporary art festival organized by the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art. She regularly publishes at e-flux journal and has contributed to various books and publications. A series of books of hers will be published by Archive Books in 2026.
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River Talks are curated by Noor Ahmed, Martina Huber, and Anushka Rajendran for River Landscapes in collaboration with Karachi Biennale 2027, We Are AIA|Awareness in Art, and Prameya Art Foundation