Vancouver Biennale

Vancouver Biennale The Vancouver Biennale is a non-profit charitable organization that celebrates art in public space.

Vancouver Biennale names senior curator for 2027-29 editionTHE ART NEWSPAPER • Hadani Ditmars • April 23, 2026 2:16 PM T...
04/25/2026

Vancouver Biennale names senior curator for 2027-29 edition

THE ART NEWSPAPER • Hadani Ditmars • April 23, 2026 2:16 PM

This marks a return to Vancouver for the Brazilian curator Marcello Dantas, who organised a Vik Muniz project in the city as part of the biennale’s 2013-15 edition.

The Vancouver Biennale has selected Marcello Dantas to be the senior curator for its 2027-29 edition. According to the biennale’s founder and director, Barrie Mowatt, Dantas is “widely recognised as one of the world’s most distinguished and innovative curators, and we are honoured to welcome him to Vancouver.”

Mowatt says that Dantas’s most recent projects include co-curating the 2024 edition of the outdoor art exhibition Desert X AlUla in Saudi Arabia (with Maya El Khalil) and curating an Es Devlin exhibition in São Paulo. Dantas is also the art director at Sfer Ik, an art centre in Tulum, Mexico. And, with the Fifa World Cup coming to Vancouver in just eight weeks, Mowatt adds that Dantas has “World Cup experience” , having served as the artistic director of Pelé Station, a massive multimedia exhibition about the Brazilian soccer legend Pelé during the 2006 World Cup in Berlin.

In addition to curating exhibitions by artists including Shirin Neshat, Bill Viola, Tunga, Ai Weiwei and Laura Vinci, Dantas has produced operas by Peter Greenaway and La Fura dels Baus. He is also a film-maker who has made 12 documentaries about artists. This is not the São Paulo-curator’s first time working in Vancouver: he was involved in the Vancouver Biennale’s 2013-15 edition, curating a project by Vik Muniz that involved using local natural materials to create a portrait of a wolf that was so large it could only be fully viewed from an elevated platform. Dantas worked with local First Nations and community groups on that project, and says he hopes to continue those types of collaborations in the upcoming biennale.

Continued below in the comments

Ongoing art travels in Japan have led our team to the beautiful Pola Museum of Art (ポーラ美術館 polamuseumofart) in Hakone. T...
04/09/2026

Ongoing art travels in Japan have led our team to the beautiful Pola Museum of Art (ポーラ美術館 polamuseumofart) in Hakone. The images of the two deer artworks are extremely fascinating to examine at close range; in particular, the crystal spheres’ internal images captivate viewers of all ages.

“Nawa Kohei generates a wide range of imagery by harnessing the properties of diverse materials and exploring relationships between life and the cosmos, perception, and science and technology.

“His sculptures give concrete form to his concept of PixCell, which combines the pixels of digital images with the cell, the smallest unit of living organisms. He creates novel visual experiences by covering taxidermied animals, which represent the natural world, with artificial crystal spheres attached using advanced adhesive techniques, and blurring the boundary between nature and artifice.

“The shifting sense of distance depending on the viewer’s position elicits reconsideration of the relationship between viewer and work as well as the meanings that arise from the work. Two PixCell-Deer face one another, and a space that renders the unseen visible brings the exhibition to its close.” —

Postscript: It was a pleasure for our team to meet the artist at his studio, and they are especially grateful to him and Chie for their time and the inspirational studio tour.





04/09/2026



Vancouver Biennale team members have thoroughly enjoyed their visits to a couple of Japan’s “art islands” in the Seto Inland Sea.

Former fishing communities, these islands have been transformed into contemporary art destinations featuring multiple museums designed by Tadao Ando, outdoor installations, and site-specific projects.

Nature is an outstanding backdrop for many of the outside artworks: expansive ocean views, abundant fresh air, colourful spring blooms, and birdsong complement the overall art experience.

Must-see venues are the indoor and outdoor artworks at the Benesse House Museum on the island of Naoshima.

As some venues do not permit photography, the experiences—particularly those at the architectural works—remain in visitors’ memories.

We strongly encourage anyone visiting Japan to include at least two or three days on these enchanting islands, as there is an abundance of things to see and experience.




THE BLUE TREES by Konstantin Dimopoulous is a Vancouver Biennale initiative launched during our 2009 - 2011 exhibition t...
04/08/2026

THE BLUE TREES by Konstantin Dimopoulous is a Vancouver Biennale initiative launched during our 2009 - 2011 exhibition that has gone on to become an international award-winning public-art installation created in over 20 cities across the globe. (Many of you may also recall his BLUE TREES installations in West Vancouver and Squamish during our 2014-2016 open-air exhibition.)

Through this art installation, which brings environmental consciousness and social action together via community participation, trees are coloured using a biologically safe watercolour.

For this temporary transformation of a familiar urban landscape, community members assist the artist and become artists, too, in a process that empowers everyone in their understanding of the role art can play in highlighting local and global issues.

Trees are largely invisible in our daily lives, and the blue colour is a means of altering perception, a powerful stimulant used to raise social consciousness about the role of trees as the lungs of the world.

📸: Dave Brown





04/06/2026

in Tokyo!

Recent weeks have seen some of our team in Lebanon and Türkiye. Now in Japan, they’re discovering there’s no shortage of art, particularly in this sprawling megacity of 35 million.

As we all know, art may be viewed in a multitude of spaces, many of them in the outdoor realm (such as plazas, boulevards, sidewalks, traffic circles, manhole covers, academic campuses, beaches, airports, ferry terminals, residential complexes, and art parks) and others in indoor spaces (such as museums, galleries, public transit, hotels, restaurants, schools, retail shops, hospitals, and cinemas).

The diversity of spaces where art may be viewed in Tokyo reminds us of our mission: to exhibit art that is accessible to locals and tourists— 24/7/365 whether it be sunny or snowing—in places where we live, work, play, and transit.

As many of you know, we have been installing art in a multitude of public spaces, neighbourhoods, and cities since our earliest exhibitions during the late 1990s and early 2000s—before we officially became the Vancouver Biennale.

We hope you enjoy these images from Tokyo and invite your comments pertaining to art viewed during your travels.





03/25/2026



Shortly after having landed in Seoul, some of our team had the good fortune to witness this cultural presentation at Incheon International Airport.

Where will they visit next? 🤔

Stay tuned for more art explorations!

Memories! We’re going back to 2021 when we installed this very tall (and very red) sculpture along the Yaletown Seawall ...
03/10/2026

Memories!

We’re going back to 2021 when we installed this very tall (and very red) sculpture along the Yaletown Seawall in Vancouver.

Chen Wenling’s painted bronze and stainless steel THE PROUD YOUTH sculpture was a towering 5.5 metres tall and weighed 3,000 kilograms.

Art that animates public space❣️

We’d love to see your favourite photo or video taken with the YOUTH. Don’t forget to tag us 😎

P.S. A shoutout to the Belton Direct Rigging team for executing this installation so seamlessly.

02/24/2026

Art explorations in Saudi Arabia!

While conducting research in this country, some of our team visited the city of AlUla, nearly 700 kilometres north of Jeddah.

With abundant venues to explore both inside and outside the city, they visited arts and cultural organizations and made many connections that will further strengthen the cultural bridges between our two countries. 🇸🇦🇨🇦 (We wish to specifically acknowledge Rayan Javed and Mukesh Thanu, without whom these visits and meetings would not have occurred.)

Some of the highlights include visits to Design Space AlUla and Madrasat Addeera, where Vancouver Biennale team members had the pleasure to connect with colleagues at Turquoise Mountain. We look forward to future dialogue in the coming months!

The visit to Desert X AlUla—many of you are undoubtedly familiar with Desert X in southern California’s Coachella Valley—also stands out. (A special thank-you to Abdul for the guided tour of all ten installations. The added info he provided was most informative.)

On behalf of our team, we extend our congratulations to the entire Desert X AlUla team, particularly curators Wejdan Reda and Zoé Whitley and co-artistic directors Neville Wakefield and Raneem Farsi. We can only imagine the plethora of logistics essential for mounting and installing an outdoor art biennial—in the desert!

We look forward to our return in 2028!



, , , , , , , .alzeer, , ,
, , , ? , ,

Art travels! Recently our Founder/Artistic Director, Barrie Mowatt, attended the inaugural Art Basel Qatar fair, which ...
02/17/2026

Art travels!

Recently our Founder/Artistic Director, Barrie Mowatt, attended the inaugural Art Basel Qatar fair, which brought a multitude of MENASA voices to Doha to broaden the global art conversation.

Barrie met with artists, gallerists, curators, and museum directors; attended Art Basel Qatar talks, networking dinners, and specially curated, one-of-a-kind events (such as Rahaal); and conducted abundant research for future Vancouver Biennale projects and initiatives. It is, indeed, an exciting time for bringing a plurality of voices together under the umbrella of art!

The words of Wael Shawky, Artistic Director of Art Basel Qatar 2026, linger with us: “ . . . the fair is not only a place to acquire art, but a cultural platform that can generate long term knowledge, dialogue, and opportunity for artists.” Our team members are enthusiastic to continue the dialogue about building these “art bridges” between the Gulf nations and Canada.

Stay in touch as we return to Saudi Arabia for explorations at Desert X AlUla and continue discussions with arts and cultural connectors. And be sure to say hello if you live and work in the region!

02/02/2026

After Elif Kamisli’s trip to Vancouver in July 2025, a couple of our team were delighted to see her again—this time in her hometown of Eskişehir, Türkiye.

The Odunpazari Modern Museum, designed by the Japanese architectural firm Kengo Kuma and Associates, was the ideal venue for a visit and a discovery of more artists, particularly those living and working in Türkiye.

This enjoyable afternoon in Eskişehir also included a walk-through of a couple of community arts spaces managed by Esra Eldem, whom our team subsequently met in Istanbul.

Thank you, Elif and Esra, for your time, knowledge, conversation, and enthusiasm about arts and culture in Türkiye. We look forward to future collaborations between our two countries.

01/31/2026

Here are some highlights from one of our many explorations in Türkiye: the Cer Modern contemporary art centre in Ankara. Congratulations to curator Attila Güllü on another successful NEW:NOW exhibition and a sizeable thank-you for sharing his deep knowledge and fervent passion during a tour with our team members.

“This selection of young artists invites us to reflect on progression and cyclicality of time, through transformation, renewal, creativity, grounding, and originality. Presented for the fourth time in this unique venue built exactly one hundred years ago, [the] NEW:NOW series aims at nurturing our hope for novelty, continuity, institutionalization/rooting, and sustainability. Originally built as a maintenance workshop for trains, Cer presents art events to audiences as a dynamic, vibrant, healing, caring, and transformative space. We believe NEW:NOW aligns fully with its founding purpose.

“The difficulties, obstacles, and challenges faced by young artists and by art in general—as far as we can observe—cannot slow them down but sharpen their determination. The plurality of production across traditional and new media, the remarkable scope and outcomes of scientific research methods, the inspiration ignited by the boundlessness of artistic creativity, the intense dynamism of our country’s current condition, and the tensions and vortices created by its position with one foot in the Middle East and the other in Europe all together form a stimulating climate for our fictional and creative disciplines.

Continued in comments below.

Address

290 West 3rd Avenue
Vancouver, BC
V5Y1G1

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

Telephone

+16046821289

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Vancouver Biennale posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Establishment

Send a message to Vancouver Biennale:

Shortcuts

Share

Category