Artists: Adama Delphine Fawundu, Adjani Okpu-Egbe, Aislan Pankararu, Akinbode Akinbiyi, Alain Padeau, Alberto Pitta, Aline Baiana, Amina Agueznay, Ana Raylander Mártis dos Anjos, Andrew Roberts, Antonio Társis, Behjat Sadr, Berenice Olmedo, Bertina Lopes, Camille Turner, Carla Gueye, Cevdet Erek, Chaïbia Talal, Christopher Cozier, Cici Wu with Yuan Yuan, Cynthia Hawkins, Edival Ramosa, Emeka Ogboh, Ernest Cole, Ernest Mancoba, Farid Belkahia, Firelei Báez, Forensic Architecture / Forensis, Forugh Farrokhzad, Frank Bowling, Frankétienne, Gê Viana, Gervane de Paula, Gōzō Yoshimasu, Hajra Waheed, Hamedine Kane, Hamid Zénati, Hao Jingban, Heitor dos Prazeres, Helena Uambembe, Hessie, Huguette Caland, I Gusti Ayu Kadek Murniasih (Murni), Imran Mir, Isa Genzken, Joar Nango with the Girjegumpi crew, Josèfa Ntjam, Juliana dos Santos, Julianknxx, Kader Attia, Kamala Ibrahim Ishag, Kenzi Shiokava, Korakrit Arunanondchai, Laila Hida, Laure Prouvost, Leiko Ikemura, Leila Alaoui, Leo Asemota, Leonel Vásquez, Lidia Lisbôa, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Madame Zo, Madiha Umar, Malika Agueznay, Manauara Clandestina, Mansour Ciss Kanakassy, Mao Ishikawa, Márcia Falcão, Maria Auxiliadora, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Marlene Almeida, Maxwell Alexandre, Meriem Bennani, Metta Pracrutti, Michele Ciacciofera, Ming Smith, Minia Biabiany, Moffat Takadiwa, Mohamed Melehi, Moisés Patrício, Myriam Omar Awadi, Myrlande Constant, Tecidos bordados com miçangas e vidrilhos., Nádia Taquary, Nari Ward, Nguyễn Trinh Thi, Noor Abed, Nzante Spee, Olivier Marboeuf, Olu Oguibe, Oscar Murillo, Otobong Nkanga, Pélagie Gbaguidi, Pol Taburet, Precious Okoyomon, Raukura Turei, Raven Chacon, Iggor Cavalera & Laima Leyton, in collaboration with members of the Etenhiritipa Xavante community, Rebeca Carapiá, Richianny Ratovo, Ruth Ige, Sadikou Oukpedjo, Sallisa Rosa, Sara Sejin Chang (Sara van der Heide), Sérgio Soarez, Sertão Negro, Sharon Hayes, Shuvinai Ashoona, Simnikiwe Buhlungu, Song Dong, Suchitra Mattai, Tanka Fonta, Thania Petersen, Theo Eshetu, Théodore Diouf, Theresah Ankomah, Trương Công Tùng, Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn, Vilanismo, Werewere Liking, Wolfgang Tillmans, Zózimo Bulbul
Entitled Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice, the edition will be led by chief curator Prof. Dr. Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung together with his conceptual team of co-curators Alya Sebti, Anna Roberta Goetz and Thiago de Paula Souza, as well as co-curator at large Keyna Eleison and strategy and communication advisor Henriette Gallus. The exhibition takes its cue from Afrobrazilian poet Conceição Evaristo’s enigmatic poem Da calma e do silêncio [Of calm and silence].
The central proposal of this Bienal is to rethink humanity as a verb, a living practice, in a world that requires reimagining relationships, asymmetries and listening as the basis for coexistence, based on three curatorial fragments/axes. The metaphor of the estuary – a place where different water currents meet and create a space for coexistence – guides the curatorial project, inspired by Brazilian philosophies, landscapes and mythologies. This concept reflects the multiplicity of encounters that have marked Brazil’s history and proposes that humanity comes together and transforms itself through an attentive ear and negotiation between different beings and worlds.
This edition of the Bienal de Sao Paulo is structured as a research project that will manifest itself in three fragments/axes. The first curatorial fragment/axis advocates for claiming space and time, it seeks to slow down and pay attention to details and other beings that constitute our surroundings. This fragment situates itself within Conceição Evaristo’s poem Da calma e do silêncio and evokes the importance of exploring the submerged worlds that only the silence of poetry and poetic listening can access, by welcoming differences and suggesting a reconnection with the natural environment and its subtleties.
In the second fragment/axis, the Bienal invites the public to see themselves in the reflection of the other. The proposal is to question what we see when we look at ourselves and others, confronting the barriers and borders of our societies. This fragment situates itself within the poem by Haitian poet René Depestre Une Conscience En Fleur Pour Autrui and it explores the interconnectedness of experiences, proposing a coexistence that is more attentive to collective needs.
Finally, the third fragment/axis focuses on spaces of encounters – like estuaries that are spaces of multiple encounters, not only the meeting of sweet and salt water, but also the encounter of the so-called new world by the enslaved people abducted from Africa. This fragment reflects on coloniality, its power structures and the ramifications thereof in our societies today. This reflection is based on the manguebit movement and its ‘Crabs with Brains’ manifesto, understood as a representation of the so-called collective social brain. Brazil’s history, marked by the fusion of Indigenous peoples, Europeans and enslaved Africans, is a microcosm of the power asymmetries that still persist. Along these lines, the exhibition explores how cultures and societies deal with these differences and create new paths of coexistence and beauty, as manifested in Patrick Chamoiseau and Édouard Glissant’s The intractable beauty of the world.
Leiko Ikemura
Leiko Ikemura’s work reflects the singular trajectory of a universal artist who, born in Mie province, Japan, has developed a poetic language shaped by the experience of displacement and a constant dialogue between cultures. Based in Europe since the 1970s, the artist studied at the Facultad de Bellas Artes at the Universidad de Sevilla and spent time in Switzerland and Germany, where she currently resides. This transnational experience allows her to escape both a rigidly Japanese identity and an automatic adherence to the canons of Western art. Her work outlines a field of its own, where echoes of Spanish Baroque painting and European Neo-Expressionism – such as the Junge Wilde movement – intertwine with foundations of Japanese aesthetic thought, including respect for matter and nature, an appreciation of gesture, and the acceptance of imperfection.
This movement between different referential systems becomes especially evident in the Girls series, where Ikemura dismantles both kawaii1 aesthetics and the traditional male gaze imposed on the female body. Her girls do not seek to please: they are diffuse, at times spectral figures, whose bodies and faces seem to emerge from a mist, carrying an unsettling delicacy and overflowing humanity. With large eyes and simplified features, these figures reveal inner fractures. Some conceal their eyes or mouths; others appear to be dissolving. For the artist, these zones of the body function as “wounds” that connect the self to the outside world. By distancing herself from a Japan-centered gaze, Ikemura is able to reposition the figure of the girl and return her as a subject, not an ideal. In this way, her work reveals the psychological complexity of the transition from childhood to adulthood, a period in which the body and identity undergo their most fragile and turbulent moments.
The same vital ambiguity runs through her more recent works, gathered here in a set of three paintings featuring green beings in different stages of mutation. These hybrid figures – part plant, part ancestral – question the human condition and evoke a deep interdependence with other living beings. In the artist’s own words, they “emerge from nature and from belief in the power of the ancestors,” pointing to a regenerative coexistence between worlds and species. Meanwhile, in the Red Scape and Sea Division drawing series, line and color act as records of a sensitive gesture that brings writing closer to landscape – an inheritance visible in both Japanese calligraphy and the practice of sumi-e. With rarefied lines and vibrant atmospheres, these images condense the tension between presence and disappearance. In Ikemura’s work, the elements of tradition are not formal quotations, but living forces that traverse an artistic practice in constant metamorphosis.
Leonardo Matsuhei
Translated from Portuguese by Sergio Maciel
Opening hours:
Tues, Thurs, Fri & Sun, 10am – 6pm (last entry: 5:30pm)
Wed, Sat, 10am – 8pm (last entry: 7:30pm)
free admission
Source: The 36th Bienal de São Paulo
Fundação Bienal de São Paulo
Av. Pedro Álvares Cabral, s.n.
Ibirapuera Park, gate 3
Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion
São Paulo, SP, Brazil
tel. +55 (0)11 5576 7600
contato@bienal.org.br
https://36.bienal.org.br/