The Mosaic Rooms is pleased to announce Constellations of Multiple Wishes. This group exhibition contemplates entangled recent histories, from the foundations of the Non-Aligned Movement. Co-curated with Bojana Piškur, the exhibition brings together archival materials, existing and newly commissioned works that connect peripheral geographies, agitating relationships between time and memory.

Derived from the principles of the 1955 Afro–Asian Conference in Bandung, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) was a political project that mobilised a desire for an alternative to the two dominant power blocks during the Cold War. Born in 1961 out of the liberation and independence movements across the globe, its ideology was rooted in anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism, anti-racism and anti-capitalism. It sought to initiate infrastructures of cultural equality and expansive networks of cooperation and solidarity.

Although significantly distinct, our shared present remains burdened by deep divisions and increasing global inequalities. Though NAM continues to exist now with 120 member states, it has lost its significance and resemblance to the 1960s movement and its intentions. Avoiding the allure of nostalgia, Constellations of Multiple Wishes is inspired by the notion of ‘potential history.’ A form of being and thinking with others both living and past across time, using it to reactivate ideas, and counter the politics and poetics of memory. The exhibition refuses the position of historian; it loops, repeats, rewinds and forwards, acting as a conduit for shared ideas.

Conversing between archival materials, existing works and contemporary commissions, the works in the exhibition explore past imaginaries and words yet to be enacted, trace shared experiences, consider relationships and borderlines that have since been dissolved and that continue to displace. Laced with poetic intervention, they move through failure and anxiety, hope and solidarity and the radical potential embedded in collective action. 

Shown in London for the first time, works selected by the curators of The Art Collection of Non-aligned Countries Laboratory (part of the Centre for Contemporary Art of Montenegro Fund).

More details about all the works in the exhibition can be found here.

As The Mosaic Rooms celebrates its 15th year, this exhibition opens a year-long programme that interrogates active solidarity, support structures and alternative models of self-organisation and collaboration.

Bojana Piškur works as a curator in the Moderna galerija / Museum of Modern Art in Ljubljana. Her focus of professional interest is on political issues as they relate to or are manifested in the field of art, with special emphasis on the region of post-Yugoslavia.

PRESS RELEASE – Constellations of Multiple Wishes

A reading list accompanying the exhibition

This exhibition is generously supported by Arts Council England.

With support from the Slovenian Embassy, London.

Image: Constellations of Multiple Wishes, installation view at The Mosaic Rooms. Photography: Andy Stagg.