Today, in the midst of a global lockdown, uncertainty emerges everywhere and prompts the question: What will life be like “after the pandemic”? The worst thing that could happen to us would be to return to “normality” as if nothing had happened. In that case, we would have lost the only positive aspect that these unfortunate events could have generated: to rethink the dynamics in which we have been functioning until now.

In the specific field of the arts and the world of culture, we would be missing the opportunity to review to what extent this world has distanced itself in relation to the defense of one of the human rights that we believe contributes to making other rights visible, such as the right of access to culture. Missing the opportunity to criticize “normality” would stagnate us in the past.

Therefore, in this context in which vital conditions are so extreme, in which way can we consider continuity? Those of us who focus on and have culture as a platform of action, how can we think all this, how can we intervene? In what ways can we carry on with the plight for a contemporary humanism in this new scenario?

Finding the answers to these questions will not be easy, and  there won’t be  unique answers either, but from #BIENALSURCommunity we are interested in enabling this dialogue to try to weigh and find some solutions. On Saturday May 9, at noon, argentine time, Anibal Jozami, general director of BIENALSUR, and Diana Wechsler, artistic-academic director of BIENALSUR, will talk via streaming about these and other questions with Manolo Borja, director of the Reina Sofia Museum (Spain); Ticio Escobar, former Minister of Culture of Paraguay; Maria Wills, director of Arts Unit – Bank of the Republic of Colombia; and artists Eduardo Basualdo, from Argentina; Voluspa Jarpa, from Chile; and Betsabée Romero, from Mexico.

Looking forward to see you all in the BIENALSUR website, next Saturday at 12 pm (argentine time). The session will be held via streaming with simultaneous English translation on bienalsur-org/en

We will receive your questions for the participants of the BIENALSUR 2020 First session in the mail encuentros@bienalsur.org.