Mikhail Karikis
Voices, Communities, Ecologies.
April 5–July 27, 2025
The Kunstmuseum St.Gallen is dedicating a comprehensive solo exhibition to the internationally renowned Greek-British artist Mikhail Karikis. Karikis is known for his interdisciplinary works that unite sound, film, and performance. His work is shaped by social and environmental responsibility and amplifies the voices of communities that often go unheard. With Voices, Communities, Ecologies., the Kunstmuseum St.Gallen presents a mid-career retrospective featuring a selection of his highly acclaimed works alongside a newly commissioned piece created specifically for the exhibition.
A Soundscape of Transformation
In his art, Karikis explores the interplay between sound, the environment, and human experience. Through immersive audiovisual installations, he creates spaces that encourage reflection on social justice, collective action, and visions of the future. This exhibition features significant works created with communities from across the continents, such as Sounds from Beneath, in which former coal miners preserve their memories of industrial decline through song, and Children of Unquiet, which captures children’s perspectives on a post-industrial world. Also on display are SeaWomen, a tribute to ecofeminist traditions, and Songs for the Storm to Come, which intertwines protest music with communal speculative visions of the future.
New Commission: A Universe of Solutions (CH)
A highlight of the exhibition is the newly commissioned work A Universe of Solutions (CH). In collaboration with musicians from the Youth Symphony Orchestra in St.Gallen, Karikis has developed an innovative sound and video project that musically and visually explores the idea of a sustainable future. The work was created in multiple phases, including workshops, a film shoot in the iconic Theater St.Gallen, and the subsequent film installation at the museum. The costumes were designed by Albert Kriemler, Creative Director of the fashion house Akris, and lend the production a visual strength in white.
Mikhail Karikis – Voices, Communities, Ecologies. is an invitation to engage with the pressing issues of our time and experience the transformative power of art, sound, and community.
Impressions
The Artist
Mikhail Karikis is a Greek-British artist living in Lisbon and working with moving image, sound, performance and other media. He develops projects and exhibits internationally in museums, biennials, film festivals and theatres. Through collaborations with individuals and/or communities located beyond the circles of contemporary art, and in recent years with children, refugees, support workers and people with disabilities, he develops socially embedded projects that prompt an activist imaginary and rouse the potential to invent hopeful and sustainable futures. His projects highlight alternative modes of action and solidarity, while nurturing critical attention, dignity and care.
Karikis is recipient of the Paul Hamlyn Award 2024, and was shortlisted for the Film London Derek Jarman Award 2016 and 2019, as well as the Anglo-Japanese DAIWA Art Prize 2015.
Group exhibitions include 54th Venice Biennale, (2011), IT; Manifesta 9, Ghenk, (2012); 19th Biennale of Sydney, (2014); Kochi-Muziris Biennale, IN, (2016); MediaCity Seoul, KR (2015); British Art Show 8 (2016-7); 2nd Riga International Biennale of Contemporary Art, LV (2020), 2nd Saitama Triennale (2024), JP and others.
Solo exhibitions in 2024 include Songs for the Storm to Come, HOME Gallery, Manchester, UK and Voices, Communities, EcologiesCukrarna Centre for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana, SO; Because We Are Together (2023), National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens GR; Ferocious Love, Tate Liverpool (2020); Children of Unquiet, Tate St Ives, UK (2019-20); Mikhail Karikis, MORI Art Museum, Tokyo, JP (2019); No Ordinary Protest, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK (2018); Ain’t Got No Fear, Turku Art Museum, FI (2018) and elsewhere.
In his most recent works for the stage, he created performances for 300 participants in his role as artistic director for UNESCO’s Creative Cities Network inaugural cultural event in Braga PT (2024) and for his project Sons de Uma Revolução for Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, PT (2024).
Karikis’s creative endeavours include music performances at Royal Opera House Covent Garden and Barbican Theatre, music albums in collaboration with Björk, DJ Spooky and his three solo albums – Orphica (2007), Morphica (2009), Xenofonia (2012) – on the Belgian record label Sub Rosa.
Forthcoming solos exhibitions in 2025 of his work will be hosted by Gulbenkian Centre for Modern Art (CAM), Lisbon, Portugal, The Showroom and at Foundling Museum in London, UK.
Catalogue
In June 2025, a publication will be released by the renowned publisher MOUSSE, featuring a foreword by Gianni Jetzer and texts by Jack Nicholl, Henna Keski-Mäenpää, and Iwona Blazwick, as well as a conversation between Mikhail Karikis and former collaborators Sonia Boyce and Zineb Sedira.
