Unfortunate Grammar

Atelier Mondial x Institute Art Gender Nature HGK Basel FHNW

Amador e Jr. Segurança Patrimonial Ltda, Ina Yaelle Aline Hählen, Heather Phillipson, Amadeo Maria Schwaller, Po-Jen Wei, Max Zbinden
Curated by Sincerely

Opening Wed 27 May 2026, 5.30 pm  
Introduction by Sincerely Fri 29 May 2026, 10 am (as part of Ateliers Ouverts 2026)
Readings by Emma Bonven, Pat Homse, Ulas Toprak Fri 5 June 2026, 5 pm
Exhibition 28 May – 7 June 2026
Opening hours: Fri to Sun 2 – 6 pm  

Salon Mondial, Basel/Münchenstein
ateliermondial.com

A collaboration between Atelier Mondial and Institute Art Gender Nature HGK Basel FHNW

Ups. I shall need courage to do what I’m about to do: speak. And risk the enormous surprise I shall feel at the poverty of the spoken thing. As soon as it’s out of my mouth, I’ll have to add: “That’s not it, that’s not it.”
 
“Unfortunate Grammar” slides under the word order. Scrambled sentences. Spangled mind. Hold on to the rules of language. Unfortunate twitches. What we have at mouth is nervous. Sentences stumble out. We meet each other right here. We met on the way to grammar. I felt what you were trying to say. Anyway, it’s slippery, catching thoughts with words.
 
The unsayable is a gift from the failure of language. It seeps out through spastic syntax. Birthday feeting thought happy. When the word order has fallen, duh duhhh, attention shifts. “Unfortunate Grammar” invites a full stop, and then a reconfiguration of how to listen. Given sense has partially left. So we give other senses.
 
“Unfortunate Grammar” is promiscuous, so lucky to be honest.
 
May you sleep on the breast of your delicate friend.

For the eleventh time, this spring, Atelier Mondial and the Institute Art Gender Nature present a collaborative exhibition project that brings together art students with the international artists in residence at Atelier Mondial. This year’s edition is curated by Sincerely, a space organized by and for students of the Institute Art Gender Nature to share their work, experiment with curation and collaboration while creating community. Working in close dialogue with the invited artists, Sincerely is approaching this exhibition as a collective process, shaping a format that reflects the energies and the spirit of exchange and mutual engagement that has defined this collaboration between Atelier Mondial and the Institute Art Gender Nature since its beginnings in 2015.

Moreover, the exhibition Unfortunate Grammar resonates with the concerns of the upcoming spring symposium of the Institute Art Gender Nature, The Political Dimension of Language (27 – 28 May 2026), curated and moderated by Chus Martínez and Quinn Latimer. The exhibition opening will take place on 27 May 2026, following the first day of the Spring Symposium. By thinking of language as a structure, ritual, material, and system of redistribution of agency and power, the exhibition brings together artistic practices by students, residents of Atelier Mondial, and a participant in the symposium, Heather Phillipson, engaging with how forms of expression are shaped, displaced, interrupted, and shared. In this sense, grammar is understood as a set of practices through which ideas and affects are shared, and as a way for artists to test what happens across voice, body, image, place, and address.