The 12th Havana Biennial in 2015 will not have a central exhibition area – it will occupy many different places in the city which are right for the work. It will run from May 22 through to June 22, 2015, with the title ‘Between the Idea and Experience’.

The curators see this as a way of picking up strands from previous biennials and taking them forward, remodelling previous working strategies to explore other roads than the mega exhibition.

This approach is part of one of the most precious resources of the Havana encounter: to feel the city and its people, involving its population and professional communities, its micro-policies and micro-spaces of socialization.

The curators approach is based on the idea that perception of art is transformed in the challenges and uncertainties produced by experience while new cultural horizons open and other forms of sociability and interconnection are created.

The curators say: “…The projects to be carried out in Havana must bear an effect upon its inhabitants, either through the latter’s participation in their concept and achievement or through the presentation of the works as live social laboratory. We would like to have the diverse scales of the urban network – universities, research centers and everything that makes integration possible – used as location and working material.

“…we wish to favor the intersections between different art expressions such as dance, theater, music, the cinema and literature, considering the semantic wealth that hybridization contributes to what we understand as visuality. The basic idea is to grant these crossings a leading role instead of being mere backdrops. Hence our interest in extending an invitation for the confluence of artists and specialists in other disciplines.

The Twelfth Havana Biennial will not have a central exhibition area. It aims at settling in those interstices of the city that facilitate the work on the above-mentioned premises.

The Curatorial team of the Twelfth Havana Biennial.

Jorge Fernandez Torres, Director Havana Biennial and Curator.
Margarita Gonzalez Lorente, Artistic Director Havana Biennial and Curator.

Curators: Nelson Herrera Ysla, Jose Manuel Noceda Fernandez, Margarita Sanchez Prieto, Ibis Hernandez Abascal, Dannys Montes de Oca Moreda, and Jose Fernandez Portal.

For the full Curators statement see http://www.biennialfoundation.org/2014/05/havana-biennial-2015-curatorial-concept/

For details of the 2015 Biennial in Havana nearer the time see www.bienalhabana.cult.cu