Fatima Hellberg

"Small, nimble cameras occupy perspectives inaccessible to human perception, creating images that are more visceral and embodied than the purely retinal. In the absence of verbal narration, we witness an interconnected logic of violence: The camerawork lets us see the brutal working conditions, but also the brutality toward other sentient beings and the sea, all unfolding as part of the same process."

"There can be remarkable power in trusting one's senses and surrendering to a narrative devoid of explanation but driven by an undeniable sense of mission. When watching and revisiting Leviathan, I know I have experienced something. This knowing is also what I want to offer the viewers of the shows I curate-at times quieter in volume, but still carrying the feeling of having been through something and the heightened aliveness that comes with it."

Fatima Hellberg is curator and general director of the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien (MUMOK) in Vienna. She previously directed Bonner Kunstverein (2019–25) and served as artistic director of Künstlerhaus Stuttgart (2015–19). She has curated exhibitions at CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, Tate Modern, ICA London, Malmö Konsthall, and Museion. She is curating an inaugural exhibition at MUMOK titled "Terminal Piece," opening June 19. Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel's film Leviathan (2012) follows a North Atlantic fishing trawler and stages a contained collapse of the documentary form, using small, nimble cameras to create visceral, embodied images that reveal interconnected violences without verbal narration. Hellberg emphasizes trusting the senses to produce experiences of heightened aliveness for viewers.

Read at Artforum