The São Paulo Biennial Foundation has announced the list of over 120 participants for the 36th edition of the São Paulo Biennial, titled “Not Every Traveler Walks the Roads – On Humanity as Practice.”
Slated to open on September 6, 2025, and run through January 11, 2026, the exhibition will take place at the iconic Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion in São Paulo’s Ibirapuera Park, with free admission for all.
Curated by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, alongside co-curators Alya Sebti, Anna Roberta Goetz, Thiago de Paula Souza, and co-curator at large Keyna Eleison, the exhibition draws inspiration from Conceição Evaristo’s poem “Da calma e do silêncio.” Emphasizing humanity as a practice in constant displacement, encounter, and negotiation, the Biennial reimagines how we listen, move, and connect across geographic, cultural, as well as spiritual borders.
With over 120 participating artists and collectives, including Emeka Ogboh, Otobong Nkanga, Adjani Okpu-Egbe, Firelei Báez, Ming Smith, Maxwell Alexandre, Precious Okoyomon, Forensic Architecture, Frank Bowling, and Chaïbia Talal, the Biennial resists nation-based classifications, instead following the migratory patterns of birds as a metaphor for curatorial movement. This fluid methodology foregrounds artistic practices rooted in memory, resistance, community, and non-Western cosmologies.
The exhibition design by Gisele de Paula and Tiago Guimarães echoes the Biennial’s core metaphor: rivers and estuaries. Conceived as a sensory and transformative landscape, the space prioritizes encounter and pause, embracing impermanence and flow.
“This methodological process helped us avoid classifications based on nation-states and borders. Through the birds’ senses of navigation, their impulse to move across land and water, their sense of survival, their expanded understanding of spaces and times, as well as their urgencies and agencies, we were able to engage with artistic practices in diverse geographies, while reflecting on what it means to unite humanity, in the context of the 36th São Paulo Biennial,” says Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung.
With an extended four-month duration, the 36th Biennial aims to increase accessibility and also deepens its renowned educational offerings.
