This year’s edition is inspired by the work of the Poet Conceição Evaristo and works for free
Inspired by the poem of calm and silence, the Afro-Brazilian Conceição Evaristo, the opens to the public this Saturday (6), in the Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, in the state capital, bringing together 125 artists and collectives. The free show is on display until January 11. This is the longest edition of the Biennial in its history. According to the president of the São Paulo Biennial Foundation, Andrea Pinheiro, the idea of expanding it to a period of 4 months exhibitions aims to take advantage of the school holidays and stimulate so that more people can visit the event.
In the last editions, the Biennial received more than 700,000 visitors, reaffirming its place as the largest contemporary art event in the southern hemisphere. “With a large meeting space, the Biennial is marked by the diversity of not only artists, but also producers. The show and all its schedule are entirely free. This is a surprising point,” said the president of the Biennial Foundation.
“We extended the duration of the Biennial for another four weeks, visiting until January 11, to expand this significant project, including the school holidays, which is a super important period for the museums of Sao Paulo,” he added. For this year, highlighted the president of the Biennial Foundation, the goal is not only to expand the visiting public, but also expand educational activities.
“In the last Biennial, nearly 70,000 children were served here in this pavilion by our educational program. This year, we expanded these capture efforts to set a new goal of 100,000 children [participando das atividades educativas] in the pavilion. Other than that, we will train 25,000 public school teachers, more than the 18,000 of the last Biennial. And this has a huge impact of over 1 million children learning the content we disclose, ”he explained.
Humanity as a practice
Under the title not every traveler walks roads – from humanity as a practice, extracted from verses from the poem of Conceição Evaristo [Nem todo viandante anda estradas, há mundos submersos, que só o silêncio da poesia penetra]the proposal of the Art Biennial is to rethink humanity. The general curatorship is by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng NDikung, with co-caural of Alya Sebti, Anna Roberta Goetz, Thiago de Paula Souza, Keyna Eleison and the Communication and Strategy Consultant Henriette Gallus.
“The poem of Conceição Evaristo, of calm and silence, makes us question this road in which humanity is traveling,” explained Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Nndikung. “[Atualmente] This trip threatens each other with nuclear weapons. There is also the trip of hunger, to keep people starving although we have so many grains and so many silos around the world. There are people who have nowhere to live. We also have the journey of colonialism and enslaving people. So we are reflecting on what other ways we can follow, ”he added.
Despite this advancement of the dehumanization project and other emergencies in today’s world, such as wars, NDikung says he is an optimistic and points to art as a possible way to face these violence and resist destruction. “Art gives us the possibility, sensitivity and tools to reconsider the world in which we live,” he says.
In a press conference, Ndkung stressed that one of the characteristics of being human is having empathy, noting that this is one of the themes present in this year’s Biennial. For him, it is necessary not only to feel the pain of the other, but also to be able to share their joys and celebrations. “Human being is overcoming the indifference of the pain of others and understanding what their causes are. Human being is to have consideration, having compassion, is embracing the internal multiplicities. It is recognizing that in the ruins and the rubble of our destruction, there is abundance. We think of the wealth that goes beyond the term capitalist. It is not being passive.
“Our main desire is to think how contemporary art can guide us in the construction of other political imaginary and exercise our own humanity,” recalls co -curator Thiago de Paula Souza, in an interview with Agência Brasil. “I think that is why we called so many artists to try to respond to this. We have artists from Japan, Morocco, Brazil. Each of these contexts propose new reflections,” he explains.
Displacements and migratory flows
One of the great discussions present in this edition of the Biennial is the reflection on the displacements and migratory flows. Even the conceptual team was inspired by the migratory flows of the birds as a guide for the selection of participating artists. “Like birds, we also carry memories, experiences, and languages by crossing borders. We migrate not only out of necessity, but as a form of continuous transformation,” says the Biennial presentation text.
Also according to the organizers of the show, the biennial participants come from regions permeated by rivers, seas, deserts and mountains, whose waters and banks follow stories of migration, resistance and coexistence. And it is this transforming force of rivers and nature that will permeate the entire expography of the event, a project signed by Gisele de Paula and Tiago Guimarães. Therefore, the entire conception of the Biennial was thought under the metaphor of a estuary.
“The estuary is this meeting of waters, for example, of freshwater with salt water. They are usually very fertile places, where life is abundant. So, I think this is a good metaphor for us to think how we imagine the space of the Biennial. We want it to be a very abundant space of life,” says Thiago de Paula Souza.
This estuary was divided by the curators into six chapters. Called frequencies of arrivals and belongings, the first one begins with a huge garden, designed on the ground floor, with a work of Precious Okoyomon. The installation has an irregular topography, making the visitor pass through small waterfalls, lakes and rugged areas. Among the plants present, there are medicinal, edible and invasive species coming from the Americas, the Caribbean and, above all, from the Brazilian Cerrado.
In this living garden, where stones, water, plants and light intertwine, Precious proposes that this experience is an invitation to rest and listening, but also to the awareness that the natural world operates in broader rhythms than the human. The proposal of this first axis is to make the public slow down and reconnect with nature.
“On the ground floor, we have a lot of works that are another kind of continuation to dialogue with the park. So many artists there work with organic matter or have an interest in flourishing or gardening. It’s as if the public was still kind of inserted in the park,” explains Thiago de Paula Souza.
The next chapter was called insurgency grammars, and concentrates works that address different forms of resistance to dehumanization. The idea is to invite the public to see each other in the reflection of the other, confronting the barriers and social borders. Chapter 3, on spatial rhythms and narrations, addresses the marks that were left by human migrations and transformations, among them, the slavery of blacks. Among the works present is a proposal of a new Ark of Noah, created by artist Moffat Takadiwa especially for the Biennial.
Coated with plastic and metallic waste, the ark turned into a ship or a portal. The proposal is to reflect on capitalism, racism and environmental collapse. The proposal of this third axis highlight the curators, is to reflect on coloniality and power structures. For this, it is all based on the Manguebit movement, which emerged in Recife and which had its main exponent Chico Science (1966-1997).
“Manguebit is a reference of thought. Recife also has a great estuary, the Capibaribe River. So, the figure of the estuary comes back here again. In this space we want to think about what happened in Recife in the 1990s, region that was involved with so much social inequality. Still people, artists and musicians there managed to find a way to create. I think thinking about humanity is also thinking that even under adverse conditions, creative possibilities, creative possibilities,” said Thiago de Souza Paula.
Chapter 4, Care Flows and Plural Cosmologies presents works that break with colonial and patriarchal models. In chapter 5, which was named after transformation, the idea is that the change is a permanent condition, presenting works that are changing form during the dexositive period. The last chapter, the intractable beauty of the world, in turn celebrates beauty as an act of resistance.
The artists
The list of artists include participants who exploit languages such as performance, video, painting, sound, installation, sculpture, writing and collective and musical experiments, among others. Many participants also propose investigations based on community practices, ecologies, oralities and non -western cosmologies. In all, works by 120 artists will be presented at the Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion in Ibirapuera, while five other artists will exhibit their works at the People’s House in the region of Luz.
In addition to exhibitions, the Biennial also proposes debates, performances and a project called appearances, where participants will be able to download an application to use augmented reality resources in various places around the world, such as Ibirapuera Park, the Mexico and United States border and on the margins of the Congo River. More information about the event is on the Biennial website. More information about the event is in the .
*With information from Agência Brasil
