POCHEN

Since 2018, POCHEN has been dealing with contemporary issues and narratives about the past, present and future. Every two years, the symposium and the biennial use visual and audiovisual forms of expression of multimedia art to deal with contemporary historical topics that move and culturally shape people in the Chemnitz region and Germany. Painting, sound, words, installations, light, performance and scene critically confront the past, inviting the public to question, reflect and speculate.

As an international forum for art and society, the POCHEN Biennale & Symposium is an experimental and discursive space for multimedia art in Chemnitz (Germany). The exhibition focuses on international and regional artists working at the interface of art and technology. The artistic work is to be taken as the starting point for a public, substantive discussion of relevant contemporary and social issues. In doing so, POCHEN brings together the artists' voices with relevant thinkers from science and society.

With the third edition of the festival from September 29 to October 9, 2022, we present in cooperation with European project partners national as well as international multimedia artists under the exhibition title "The (New) Measurement of the World". Under the artistic direction of the Polish curator Agnieszka Kubicka-Dzieduszycka (WRO Art Center & Media Art Biennale), new as well as established positions of 20 artists will be on display, as well as a participatory citizens' exhibition in cooperation with the Museum für Werte.

Facts about the POCHEN Biennale

POCHEN Biennale - Tage des Aufbruchs I 2018

• Exhibition about the mining company “Wismut” with more than 20 events
• 5 exhibition venues in the city of Chemnitz
• Over 50 artworks by more than 25 curated artists

Symposium 2019

• Meeting & exchange of 5 European art festivals
• over 20 nationwide network and cooperation partners
• over 15 public events, workshops & talks

POCHEN Biennale - Preis der Zukunft I 2020

• Exhibition on the Treuhandanstalt and its impact history in the context of "30 Years of German Reunification" with over 1500 visitors in 10 days (in times of the corona pandemic)
• 4 exhibition locations in the city of Chemnitz
• over 50 artworks by more than 25 curated artists

Symposium: Die (neue) Vermessung der Welt I 2021

• Meeting, exchange & presentation of more than 25 professional guests, artists and experts
• over 20 nationwide network and cooperation partners
• over 15 public events, workshops & talks

POCHEN Biennale - The (new) measurement of the world I 2022

• Exhibition on the topic of datafication with over 1500 visitors in 10 days
• An art and citizens' exhibition on more than 1500m2 in the Wirkbau Chemnitz and interventions in public space
• over 20 artistic positions by more than 30 curated artists and collectives

Project funders & partners

• EU-Japan Fest
• Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen
• Stiftung Kunstfonds
• WRO Biennale
• ZEIT-Stiftung
• ZKM Karlsruhe

Contact
POCHEN Biennale & Symposium
Production Manager: Kim Brian Dudek