WAMx

WAMx 2021: Cosmic Archeology

Cosmic archeology is a series of site specific acts that explore the transformative encounters between reality and current cultural theories that reconsider life’s sustainability. By reflecting on a specific narrative form, science fiction, it aims to engage and speculate on new systems of social relations and ecnomical structres. Read more.

  • Tabita Rezaire: Ultra Wet – Recapitulation, 23.4.–6.6.2021 
  • Alia Farid: At the time of the Ebb, 11.6.–15.8.2021 
  • Mox Mäkelä: Vieras, 20.8.–10.10.2021 
  • Patricia Domínguez: Green Irises, 15.10.–12.12.2021 

WAMx 2021–2022: Open Call

WAM Turku City Art Museum calls for artists based in Nordic countries to apply for an exhibition period within the framework of an upcoming project titled Temporary Institute for Artistic Research into the Ways of Coexistence, running from December 12, 2021, through to September 18, 2022.

WAMx – international window for exchange in Turku

In March 2019, WAM, the City Art Museum of Turku, launched WAMx, an operating model new to the Finnish art museum scene. It is a process with the primary idea of annually inviting an international expert to plan an exhibition programme in co-operation with the museum. The co-operation seeks new themes and entities that discuss current phenomena from interesting artists. The aim is to create a high-quality exhibition programme at a fast tempo that includes experimental and edgy contemporary art that provokes with its contents.

The name WAMx points to the aim of the operational concept to create a junction, X, which brings together and creates new networks between art museums, curators and artists. As a symbol, X also refers to the unknown. The unknown is an opportunity for actions that surpass the familiar boundaries, which, at its best, creates an arena for something unpredictable and, at the same time, enables the creation of something new. WAMx is an opportunity to experience and experiment as well as to see and think differently.

WAMx presents exhibitions from interesting and emerging international and Finnish artists. The expert outside museum’s organisation brings contacts, artist proposals and exhibition suggestions. As for WAM, it brings to the junction its local contacts and enables the expert to get acquainted with lively and versatile field of visual arts in Finland and especially the Turku region.

Interaction
The theme of the first year of WAMx 2019 was the symbiotic co-existence and interaction between humans and other life forms. The program was drawn up in collaboration with Gina Buenfeld, curator at Camden Arts Centre, London. Year 2020 WAMx's international expert is Ece Pazarbaşı. She is originally from Turkey and works as an independent curator in Berlin. She has made the exhibition programme to be in accordance with its title The Things We Are Made Of.

The exhibition programme of WAMx takes place at WAM’s smaller exhibition space that was formerly known as a Studio and returned to Turku Museum Centre’s management in early 2019. Concurrently this new versatile operating model that enriches the art scene was developed specifically for these premises. to this place.

The new junction of contemporary art, WAMx, enables to import international visions and currents and simultaneously exports Finnish visions abroad. The contemporary art expert organisation Frame Contemporary Art Finland was involved in establishing collaboration contacts for the year 2019.