São Paulo Biennial Goes Global with Augmented Reality

News Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung to Curate Bienal de São Paulo Sam Gaskin

In its 36th edition, the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo will take the emphasis off physical location with a show reaching across the globe through the use of augmented reality (AR).

The event’s organisers have released event details for the Biennial, which opens on 6 September and runs until January of next year under the theme, Not All Travellers Walk Roads — Of Humanity as Practice, and split across two programmes: ‘Conjugations’ and ‘Apparitions’.

Taking the form of a series of debates, gatherings, performances, and activations, ‘Conjugations’ will explore how organisations from different geographies ‘conjugate the notion of humanity through their everyday practices’, with participants ranging from thinkers and artists to performers from institutions like Africa Design School in Cotonou; the Center for Art, Research and Alliances (CARA) in New York; and Berlin-based Kunsthochschule Weißensee. 

Developed in partnership with WAVA, an app-based exhibition platform, the ‘Apparitions’ project will be the first of its kind within the history of the Bienal de São Paulo. Through AR, works from the Biennial will appear in Ibirapuera Park and other locations around the world selected by artists, such as the banks of the Congo River, and the border between Mexico and the United States. 

Visitors will only be able to access these works through the app at these locations, creating an experience aimed at being immersive, sensory, and ‘globally accessible’. 

These apparitions will include works by creators such as multimedia practitioner Juliana dos Santos and Tijuana-born artist Andrew Roberts. 

Curator Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung said both programmes epitomise humanity as ‘a verb and practice’ to be encountered, rather than an ‘abstract noun’. 

‘Both “Conjugations” and “Apparitions” are epitomes of such encounters through which humanities can be formulated,’ he said. ‘By activating networks and presences in different geographies, we are making a Biennial in constant flux.’

Further echoing that sentiment was Andrea Pinheiro, president of the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, who hoped the Biennial would serve as ‘a space of connection, which crosses borders and builds bridges between different audiences and cultures’. —[O]

Main image: Exhibition view: Madame Zo, Bientôt je vous tisse tous [Soon I will weave you all], Fondation H, Madagascar (2023–2024). Courtesy © Fondation H. Photo: Fabio Thierry Andriamiarintsoa.