Attending the opening week of this year’s Biennial curated by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, the C& Team captured some impressions of artworks by some artists of the African diaspora highlighted in the space.
The 36th Bienal de São Paulo opens to the public on September 6, 2025, at the Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, after a year and a half of curatorial engagements and encounters in different parts of the world.
The public program began in November 2024 with the Invocations convened in four locations: Marrakech, Guadeloupe, Zanzibar, and Tokyo. Each stop brought together artists, poets, musicians, and activists in performances, debates, rituals and presentations, discussing and enacting the spectrum of humanity through themes such as belonging, memory, togetherness, emancipation, interdependence, care, technology and transitions. These experiences served as an “initial ritual” that now flows into the exhibition in São Paulo, carrying stories and languages, tastes and sounds, aesthetics and rhythms that have crossed oceans and borders.
With a concept proposed by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, alongside co-curators Alya Sebti, Anna Roberta Goetz, and Thiago de Paula Souza, co-curator at large Keyna Eleison, and strategy and communications advisor Henriette Gallus, this edition is inspired by the poem “Da calma e do silêncio” [Of Calm and Silence] by poet Conceição Evaristo, and has active listening, encounter, negotiations, and respect as foundations of humanity as a practice. The metaphor of the estuary —a meeting place between different currents, site of manifestation and coexistence of different beings, space of exuberance— permeates an exhibition divided into six chapters, conceived as fractals and connected by constant flows and dialogues.
Text: Bienal de São Paulo
Work by Adama Delphine Fawudu. Installation view at Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, Fundação Bienal de São Paulo . Images by Cristian Baena / Contemporary And (C&).
Work by Adama Delphine Fawudu. Installation view at Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, Fundação Bienal de São Paulo . Images by Cristian Baena / Contemporary And (C&).
Works by Akinbode Akinbiyi. Installation view at Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, Fundação Bienal de São Paulo . Images by Cristian Baena / Contemporary And (C&).
Works by Ernest Cole. Installation view at Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, Fundação Bienal de São Paulo . Images by Cristian Baena / Contemporary And (C&).
Works by Frank Bowling. Installation view at Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, Fundação Bienal de São Paulo . Images by Cristian Baena / Contemporary And (C&).
Works by Frank Bowling. Installation view at Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, Fundação Bienal de São Paulo . Images by Cristian Baena / Contemporary And (C&).
Work by Josefa Ntjam. Installation view at Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, Fundação Bienal de São Paulo . Images by Cristian Baena / Contemporary And (C&).
Work by Julianknxx. Installation view at Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, Fundação Bienal de São Paulo . Images by Cristian Baena / Contemporary And (C&).
Works by Madame Zo. Installation view at Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, Fundação Bienal de São Paulo . Images by Cristian Baena / Contemporary And (C&).
Work by Moffat Takadiwa. Installation view at Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, Fundação Bienal de São Paulo . Images by Cristian Baena / Contemporary And (C&).
Work by Moffat Takadiwa. Installation view at Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, Fundação Bienal de São Paulo . Images by Cristian Baena / Contemporary And (C&).
Work by Moffat Takadiwa. Installation view at Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, Fundação Bienal de São Paulo . Images by Cristian Baena / Contemporary And (C&).
Work by Myriam Omar Awadi. Installation view at Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, Fundação Bienal de São Paulo . Images by Cristian Baena / Contemporary And (C&).
Work by Otobong Nkanga. Installation view at Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, Fundação Bienal de São Paulo . Images by Cristian Baena / Contemporary And (C&).
Work by Precious Okoyomon. Installation view at Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, Fundação Bienal de São Paulo . Images by Cristian Baena / Contemporary And (C&).
Work by Ruht Ige. Installation view at Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, Fundação Bienal de São Paulo . Images by Cristian Baena / Contemporary And (C&).
Work by Ruht Ige. Installation view at Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, Fundação Bienal de São Paulo . Images by Cristian Baena / Contemporary And (C&).
Work by Sadikou Oukpedjo. Installation view at Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, Fundação Bienal de São Paulo . Images by Cristian Baena / Contemporary And (C&).
Work by Tanka Fonta. Installation view at Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, Fundação Bienal de São Paulo . Images by Cristian Baena / Contemporary And (C&).
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