Under the artistic direction of Hoor Al Qasimi, the 25th Biennale of Sydney brings together global, First Nations and diasporic practices to examine memory as an active force shaping history, land and collective responsibility
Gabriel Chaile, Los Jóvenes Recordaron sus Canciones (detail), 2025. Adobe brick and metallic structure, charcoal, 4000 x1800 x 2500cm. Fundación Cervieri Monsuárez, Uruguay. Courtesy the Artist and Fundación Cervieri Monsuárez, Departamento de Maldonado. Photography: Francisca Vivo
On 14 March 2026, the 25th Biennale of Sydney opens to the public, marking a significant milestone for one of the world’s most important contemporary art platforms. Titled Rememory, this landmark edition unfolds under the artistic direction of Hoor Al Qasimi, inviting audiences into a deeply resonant exploration of memory, not as something fixed or archival, but as a living, breathing force that shapes identity, belonging and resistance.
Borrowed from Toni Morrison’s writing, the concept of rememory speaks to the persistence of the past in the present: memories that resurface, reassemble, and refuse erasure. Across this edition, artists from Australia and around the world engage memory as an active process—one that is personal, political, embodied and communal. In doing so, Rememory foregrounds marginalised histories, amplifies silenced voices and asks urgent questions about whose stories are remembered, and how.
As a major international art festival and the most significant contemporary art event of its kind in Australia, the Biennale of Sydney extends across five principal exhibition sites: White Bay Power Station, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney, Campbelltown Arts Centre and Lewers: Penrith Regional Gallery. This expanded geographical footprint reflects a deliberate commitment to accessibility and inclusivity, particularly in Western Sydney. At the same time, additional public programs activate sites across the Inner City and Greater Sydney, from Marrickville and Fairfield to Redfern, Parramatta and the Sydney Town Hall.
The 2026 edition brings together 83 artists, collaborations and collectives from 37 countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Guatemala, India, Argentina, Lebanon, Ethiopia, Algeria, Taiwan and the United States. Together, they present a constellation of works that span large-scale installations, films, performances and socially engaged practices, each rooted in specific histories, yet in conversation with shared global conditions.
At the heart of Rememory is a strong focus on First Nations knowledge systems and diasporic narratives. As Visionary Partner, the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain has commissioned 15 First Nations artists from around the world to create new works for the Biennale. Working closely with Fondation Cartier First Nations Curatorial Fellow Bruce Johnson McLean (Wierdi people of the Birri Gubba Nation), these artists, including Cannupa Hanska Luger, Gabriel Chaile, Rose B. Simpson, Gunybi Ganambarr and Warraba Weatherall, contribute to an ongoing international dialogue grounded in Indigenous sovereignty, continuity and cultural resurgence. This partnership also extends to the Sydney Opera House through Badu Gili: Story Keepers, reinforcing the Biennale’s commitment to long-term cultural collaboration rather than symbolic inclusion.
One of the most significant moments of Rememory will be the final presentation of Country of the Great Ngurrara Canvas II (1997), exhibited at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Created by Ngurrara artists of the Great Sandy Desert, this monumental 80-square-metre floor painting was initially produced as evidence for the National Native Title Tribunal, asserting deep and enduring connections to land. Its presentation in Sydney, accompanied by performances by traditional owners, underscores the Biennale’s insistence on memory as land-based, embodied and collective.
Elsewhere, Argentinian artist Gabriel Chaile presents a monumental adobe-clay oven at White Bay Power Station, drawing on his Spanish, Afro-Arabic, and Indigenous Candelaria heritage. Activated through communal meals in collaboration with Andina Peruvian Cuisine, the work positions food as a site of shared memory, cultural transmission and social cohesion. Similarly, Lebanese artist Mounira Al Solh’s participatory performances, from a communal tabbouleh preparation in Granville to collaborative drawing projects with the Arab diaspora, transform everyday rituals into acts of resistance and remembrance.
At the Chau Chak Wing Museum, Melbourne-based textile artist Ema Shin presents her most significant work to date: a towering handwoven heart inspired by a family genealogy that records generations of men while erasing women. The work becomes both a critique of patriarchal record-keeping and a tender act of recovery. Nearby, Vietnamese American artist Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn’s film The Unburied Sounds of a Troubled Horizon reflects on the lingering reverberations of the Vietnam War, positioning memory as a form of political resistance rather than closure.
The fragility of archives is also central to Kapwani Kiwanga’s Flowers of Africa series, shown at the Art Gallery of NSW. Recreating floral arrangements from photographs documenting African independence ceremonies, Kiwanga allows the flowers to wilt over time, exposing the instability of historical narratives and the false permanence of official records.
Sound, too, plays a critical role throughout Rememory. At White Bay Power Station, Cannupa Hanska Luger’s sculptural sound installation gives voice, quite literally, to animal kin through ceramic whistles shaped like native dingoes, their howls echoing across the cavernous space. At Lewers: Penrith Regional Gallery, Nora Adwan’s ceramic pomegranates conceal speakers responsive to humidity, creating a meditative soundscape shaped by environmental conditions and diasporic longing.
Social justice and systemic violence are confronted head-on in works such as Dread Scott’s Lockdown (2000, 2026), presented at Campbelltown Arts Centre. Through portraits and recorded conversations with incarcerated individuals in the United States, Scott exposes mass imprisonment as a defining condition of contemporary society, one remembered not through statistics, but through lived experience.
Beyond the exhibition spaces, Rememory unfolds through an expansive public program that emphasises participation, performance and intergenerational exchange. The opening night concert, Lights On at White Bay Power Station, sets the tone, with performances by DJ Haram, Hand to Earth, Niecy Blues and others transforming the industrial site into a resonant cultural gathering. Over the opening weekend and throughout the Biennale’s run, artist talks, performances, yarning circles, youth and family programs extend the exhibition’s themes into lived encounters.
Notably, Richard Bell’s ongoing social practice project RESET invites public participants into a series of discussions aimed at imagining new constitutional futures, culminating in a final gathering at Sydney Town Hall. Meanwhile, initiatives such as the Children’s Choir, supporting young people from refugee backgrounds, and the Memory Lane Food Markets position care, nourishment and continuity at the heart of cultural life.
As Artistic Director, Hoor Al Qasimi reflects that Rememory is shaped by artists who understand history not as a linear narrative, but as something fragmented, contested, and alive. By revisiting what has been erased or suppressed, the Biennale creates space for responsibility, reflection and possibility. For CEO Barbara Moore, this edition reaffirms the Biennale of Sydney’s core mission: to bring people together through art, fostering dialogue across cultures, communities and generations through free and inclusive access.
Running from 14 March to 14 June 2026, the 25th Biennale of Sydney invites audiences to experience the city as a site of global encounter where memory is not simply recalled, but activated. In a moment marked by historical reckoning and cultural urgency, Rememory insists that remembering is not passive. It is an act of care, a form of resistance, and a collective responsibility toward the future.
Rememory, the 25th Biennale of Sydney, is on view across multiple venues in Sydney from 14 March to 14 June 2026. For more infromation, please visit Biennale of Sydney.
