The BIENALSUR project goes beyond the boundaries of art and culture in contemporary times. Since its inception in 2015, it sought to contribute to the construction of citizenship by upholding the right to culture while underscoring the need for a democratic access to it. 

In February 2020 we launched the third international Open Call for artists and curators, the deadline of which was April 30th, thus commencing the work towards the third edition of the International Biennial of Contemporary Art organized by Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero (UNTREF). By mid-March, the context had changed: following the declaration of the pandemic and the global health emergency, a large part of the world’s population went into quarantine. When the conditions of life are so extreme, how do we deal with continuity? For those of us in the realm of culture, the question is how to conceive or envisage an intervention. What are the possible futures?  

Given the circumstances of confinement, the in-person Global South meetings that we had on our agenda were not feasible. Therefore, in May we began a series of virtual sessions towards BIENALSUR 2021 that looked at the situation brought about by the pandemic from different perspectives in order to think about and debate possible futures. To this purpose, we invited artists and curators, authorities from international organizations, government officials, heads of art institutions, cultural managers, journalists, and intellectuals from Argentina and the rest of the world.

In the dialogue with #BIENALSURcommunity we realized that everything we had proposed at the time of the creation of the BIENALSUR project was still valid; moreover, it was more necessary than ever to reassert the initial proposal. We thus decided to extend the deadline of the Open Call for BIENALSUR 2021 to June 15th, and finally more than 5,500 projects were received from one hundred and eight countries, which were analyzed for two months by the Curatorial Council. With this work as a starting point, we will outline the possible futures as themes for the third edition of BIENALSUR that will be presented and discussed at the virtual meetings with some of the artists and curators with whom we will work and/or have worked. 

At the 7th Online sessions towards BIENALSUR 2021, on Saturday, September 26th, the main topic will be Migrations and contemporary art in the twofold sense of the theme/problem of migrations in contemporary society and the issue of conceptual migrations, and the metalanguages. Aníbal Jozami, General Director of BIENALSUR, and Diana Wechsler, the Artistic Director of BIENALSUR, will be streaming a conversation with artists Kimsooja (KOR), Natacha Nisic (FRA) and Reza Aramesh, and curators Nayla Tamraz (LBN) and Abdellah Karroum (QAT).

We look forward to seeing you all on the BIENALSUR website on Saturday, September 26th, at 12 pm Argentina time. The meeting will be live streamed with simultaneous English translation.

Questions for the participants of the 7th Online session towards BIENALSUR 2021 can be sent to encuentros@bienalsur.org