THEME AND CURATORIAL CONCEPT FOR THE 36TH SÃO PAULO BIENNIAL ANNOUNCED

The Fundação Bienal de São Paulo announces the title, curatorial concept, collaborators and visual identity of the 36th São Paulo Biennial, which will take place from September 2025 at the Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion. Entitled Nem todo viandante anda estradas - Da humanidade como prática [ Not All Travellers Walk Roads - Of Humanity as Practice], the edition will be led by general curator Prof. Dr. Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung with his team of co-curators consisting of Alya Sebti, Anna Roberta Goetz and Thiago de Paula Souza, as well as co-curator Keyna Eleison and communication and strategy consultant Henriette Gallus. The exhibition is inspired by the enigmatic poem by Afro-Brazilian poet Conceição Evaristo, Da calma e do silêncio.

The exhibition also comes with a historic change in the organization of the event, which has traditionally been held from September to December. The Fundação Bienal is pleased to announce that the 36th edition of the exhibition will be extended for four more weeks, being presented from September to December.

The central proposal of this Biennial is to rethink humanity as a verb, as a living practice, in a world that demands 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 converge 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 the history of Brazil and proposes that humanity unites and transforms itself through attentive listening and negotiation between different beings and worlds.

The curatorial proposal

This edition of the São Paulo Biennial is structured as a research project that will manifest itself in three fragments/axes. The first curatorial fragment/axis proposes to reclaim space and time, seeking to slow down and pay attention to the details and other beings that constitute our environment. Set in the poem Da calma e do silêncio by Conceição Evaristo, this axis evokes the importance of exploring the submerged worlds that only the silence of poetry and poetic listening can access, welcoming differences and suggesting a reconnection with nature and its subtleties.

In the second fragment/axis, the Biennial 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 is based on the poem Une conscience en fleur pour autrui by Haitian poet René Depestre, and explores the interconnectivity of experiences, proposing a coexistence more attentive to collective needs.

Finally, the third fragment/axis focuses on spaces of encounters, just as estuaries are spaces of multiple convergences, not only between fresh and salt water, but also the encounter of the so-called New World with enslaved people abducted from Africa. This excerpt reflects on coloniality, its power structures and its ramifications in our societies today.