Sleeping Dogs

Exhibition with graduates of the Department for Site Specific Art
Klimabiennale Wien 2024
05.04. – 14.07.2024
Festivalareal Nordwestbahnhof
Nordwestbahnstraße 16, 1200 Vienna
Opening: 06.04.2024, 19.00

Artists: Ivana Lazić, Ana Likar, Raphael Reichl and Ursula Gaisbauer in collaboration with Marie Janssen and Anna Brock, David Fedders, Marie Filippovits, Lena Heinschink, Laura Josic, Tutku Kocabas, Flores Paul, Yevhenia Pavlova, Michelle Schäfer, Anastasiia Verzun, Lin Wolf, Ida Zahradnik

Curator: Marlies Pöschl

What if the proverbial dogs went on strike by not waking up from their sleep? The labour power of non-human animals is exploited in many ways in contemporary biocapitalism, mostly without it being understood as work. This concerns not only their actual productive power, but also the reproductive abilities of (female) animals: Animals become meat, milk becomes food. Non-human animals also often contribute to shaping the environment without this being perceived as labour. The cultural and material logistics established by humans have been producing and utilising animal life as a form of capital for centuries.

The works presented in this exhibition by graduates of the Department of Site-Specific Art (University of Applied Arts) are dedicated to this unequal division of labour between human and non-human animals. It introduces the motif of sleep as a subversive strategy. Sleep can appear in many different guises: Rest, hibernation, breeding phase. The works shown here thus pose the question of the extent to which animals and humans can resist these forms of exploitation by consciously taking breaks. However, they also address the fact that it may be too late to wake the dogs: that human trust in the regenerative processes of nature is disproportionate to the consequences of systematic destruction




Raphael Reichl: Andar pisando en cascarones arenosos (Walking on sandy egshells)
2-channel installation, 220 x 125 x 50 cm, 23 min (loop), stereo sound, 2022, Austria/Mexico, Courtesy by the artist



Ana Likar: Myriad Tentacles Will be Needed (Again and Again)
Full HD video, colour, stereo sound, 13 min, 2022, Courtesy by the artist



Ivana Lazić: IMMANENCE: In Becoming, Durational performance, audio, Karlsplatz clay, natural wool, 2023, Courtesy by the artist