1 December 2021 – 31 January 2022 

BABEL visningsrom for kunst welcomes Yanir Shani as the selected artist for BABEL Atelier 2021/22! From December 2021 through January 2022, Shani will use BABEL as his studio to work on his artistic practice and towards an exhibition in February 2022.

Welcome to Open Studio with Atelier BABEL artist Yanir Shani on Sunday, January 23rd from 12:00–16:00! Open Studio with Yanir Shani is free and open to the public. Visit on Sunday for a glimpse into the ways art is researched and produced as Yanir Shani works towards his upcoming exhibition Safari at BABEL in February.

At BABEL Atelier, Yanir Shani focuses his ongoing project Safari – a visual and theoretical research that depicts different zoos from around the world. Shani probes into the reasons for the continued existence of zoos by focusing on people looking at the animals as well as the superficiality and obscureness depicted by the park architecture. Through photography, text, video and performance, the project wishes to point out and raise political, environmental, and ethical questions.

“So, what are the reasons that zoos still exist? Their functionality and the moral issues around caged animals in parks, zoos and other similar institutions, are matters I have been in conflict with for most of my life.

I envision this work as a multi-year project. I aim to create a large body of photography, text and video works that, with time, will be gathered up into an artist book and exhibition. I also plan to utilise my time at BABEL to continue working on a performance which will question the idea of being caged.”

Yanir Shani (b. 1980) is a visual artist from Tel Aviv, Israel currently living and working in Trondheim, Norway. He received his MFA from the Trondheim Academy of Fine Art (2017) and his BFA from the Bezalel Academy for Fine Art and Design in Jerusalem (2011). For the past decade, he has been working as a freelance photographer, darkroom teacher and lecturer in photography while developing his own practice.

His works have been exhibited in Norway and abroad at, among others, the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington D.C.), Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage (Cleveland, USA), Tel-Hai Museum of Photography (Israel), Trøndelag Center for Contemporary Art (Trondheim), Statens Høstutstillingen (Oslo), and Vårutstillingen at Fotogalleriet (Oslo).

Atelier BABEL intends to shed light on artists’ production condition. The pilot project is supported by the Trondheim municipality’s cultural fund. Each of the three artists receives a fee of NOK 50 000 each month for the work they put into the project and its dissemination. BABEL exhibition space for art is run by the foundation Lademoen Kunstnerverksteder and is located at Mellomveien 4.

See more of Yanir Shani’s work at: yanirshani.com