Göteborg International Biennial's Seventh Edition Explores History as Rewritable Archive

The seventh Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art, titled 'A Story Within a Story,' ran from 12 September to 22 November 2015 across various venues in Göteborg. Curated by Elvira Dyangani Ose, the exhibition positioned artists as narrators equal to academic historians in rewriting historical archives. Kader Attia's installation Los de arriba y los de abajo (2015), replicating a segregated street in Hebron, introduced the biennial's focus on politically charged documentary methods. The exhibition emphasized archival fragments, photographs, films, and documents as vehicles for historical reinterpretation. Sara Jordenö's The Diamond People Project (2005–15) excavated industrial links between Robertsfors, Sweden and South African diamond mines. Lynette Yiadom-Boakye's fictional portraits and Simon Starling's El Eco (2014), reenacting a lost dance performance, offered alternative approaches to memory. Phoebe Boswell's multisensory installation The Matter of Memory (2014) addressed Kenya's colonial past. Maryam Jafri's archive of Independence Day ceremonies across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East examined colonial legacies in postcolonial rituals. The accompanying anthology featured Achille Mbembe's writing on archiving as symbolic burial. The biennial's theoretical framework drew from Umberto Eco's concept of the 'open' artwork, treating history as a collective cultural endeavor where past events can be continuously reinterpreted.