de São Paulo
Admission
– 11.1.2026
About the
36th Bienal
Entitled Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice, the edition will be led by chief curator Prof. Dr. Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung together with his conceptual team of co-curators Alya Sebti, Anna Roberta Goetz and Thiago de Paula Souza, as well as co-curator at large Keyna Eleison and strategy and communication advisor Henriette Gallus. The exhibition takes its cue from Afrobrazilian poet Conceição Evaristo’s enigmatic poem Da calma e do silêncio [Of calm and silence].
The central proposal of this Bienal is to rethink humanity as a verb, a living practice, in a world that requires reimagining relationships, asymmetries and listening as the basis for coexistence, based on three curatorial fragments/axes. The metaphor of the estuary – a place where different water currents meet and create a space for coexistence – guides the curatorial project, inspired by Brazilian philosophies, landscapes and mythologies. This concept reflects the multiplicity of encounters that have marked Brazil’s history and proposes that humanity comes together and transforms itself through an attentive ear and negotiation between different beings and worlds.
The first curatorial fragment/axis advocates for claiming space and time, it seeks to slow down and pay attention to details and other beings that constitute our surroundings. This fragment situates itself within Conceição Evaristo’s poem Da calma e do silêncio and evokes the importance of exploring the submerged worlds that only the silence of poetry and poetic listening can access, by welcoming differences and suggesting a reconnection with the natural environment and its subtleties.
In the second fragment/axis, the Bienal invites the public to see themselves in the reflection of the other. The proposal is to question what we see when we look at ourselves and others, confronting the barriers and borders of our societies. This fragment situates itself within the poem by Haitian poet René Depestre Une Conscience En Fleur Pour Autrui and it explores the interconnectedness of experiences, proposing a coexistence that is more attentive to collective needs.
Finally, the third fragment/axis focuses on spaces of encounters – like estuaries that are spaces of multiple encounters, not only the meeting of sweet and salt water, but also the encounter of the so-called new world by the enslaved people abducted from Africa. This fragment reflects on coloniality, its power structures and the ramifications thereof in our societies today. This reflection is based on the manguebit movement and its ‘Crabs with Brains’ manifesto, understood as a representation of the so-called collective social brain. Brazil’s history, marked by the fusion of Indigenous peoples, Europeans and enslaved Africans, is a microcosm of the power asymmetries that still persist. Along these lines, the exhibition explores how cultures and societies deal with these differences and create new paths of coexistence and beauty, as manifested in Patrick Chamoiseau and Edouard Glissant’s The intractable beauty of the world.

About the Invocations
As an essential part of its curatorial proposal, the 36th Bienal de São Paulo will feature the Invocations: a series of partnerships with cultural institutions from different parts of the world that precede the São Paulo show. Invocations are poetry, music, performance, discursive, panel gatherings that echo the central ideas of the 36th Bienal, investigating and apprehending notions of humanity within different geographies.
The cycle of Invocations will include talks, lectures, workshops and performances in four different cities around the globe. The first two events will be presented in 2024 in Marrakech and Les Abymes, Guadeloupe. The Morrocan encounter will take place at LE 18 and Fondation Dar Bellarj, lead by Laila Hida and Maha Elmadi; while the second Invocation will take place at Lafabri’K, led by Léna Blou. In 2025, Invocations #3 and #4 will take place in Zanzibar and Tokyo, respectively, in venues yet to be announced.
The first Invocation, entitled “Souffles: On Deep Listening and Active Reception”, and held in November 14 and 15 in Marrakech, will be a deliberation on the precarity of breath, on Gnawa, and Sufi cultures, and address listening as a practice of coexistence.
The second Invocation, entitled “Bigidi mè pa tonbé!” [Totter, but never fall!], presented in December 5 to 7 in Les Abymes, Guadeloupe, will reflect on the intelligence of the movement of bodies between rupture and adaptation to maintain the balance in movement in times of crisis.
The third Invocation held in February 2025 in Zanzibar, entitled “Mawali-Taqsim: Improvisation as a Space and Technology of Humanity”, is based on the perception of Taarab not only as a rhythm, but as a construction of encounters and multiple exchanges that the territory of Tanzania and the Indian Ocean have fostered.
The fourth and final Invocation, held in April 2025 in Tokyo, “Bukimi No Tani (不気味の谷): The Uncanny Valley – The Affectivity of the Humanoid” brings thoughts and encounters about the dynamics of affection between humans and non-humans, people and machines in an exercise of building co-existences, interactions, distances and proximities.
These meetings will act as tributaries, converging on the main body of the 36th Bienal in São Paulo, at the Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion.

Souffles:
On Deep Listening and Active Reception
Nov 14–15, 2024
Thurs, 11am–9pm
Fri, 10am–7:30pm
LE 18 & Fondation Dar Bellarj
Marrakech
With Maalem Abdellah El Gourd, Fatima-Zahra Lakrissa, Ghassan El Hakim, Kenza Sefrioui, Laila Hida, Leila Bencharnia, Maha Elmadi, Mourad Belouadi, Simnikiwe Buhlungu, and Taoufiq Izeddiou
Titled Souffles: On Deep Listening and Active Reception, the first Invocation of the 36th Bienal focuses on the circularity as well as the precarity of breath, Gnawa music as a way of being, Sufi cultures, and listening as a practice of coexistence, as well as place- and space-making.
The gathering is conceived by the 36th Bienal’s conceptual team in collaboration with LE 18 and the Fondation Dar Bellarj, as part of their curatorial practices of exploring sound and music as channels of knowledge.
Marrakech is a crossroads of cultures, belief systems and languages, with much of its vast knowledge being transmitted through sound and gesture. The first Invocation explores how these sonic (oral and aural) traditions are enacted, preserved and passed down. The ancient practices of deep listening – from the performative rituals of Gnawa brotherhood to the oral tradition of Halqa in North African theater forms– serve as the starting point for this edition.
The title is borrowed from Souffles, a poem by Birago Diop, on the potential of listening to a plethora of beings — animate and inanimate —, but also a pioneering magazine that dared to envision liberation and emancipatory political imaginaries through poetry and experimentation with language. Founded in Morocco in 1966 and inspired by thinkers such as Frantz Fanon, Mário de Andrade and René Depestre, it was one of the few to document these oral traditions until its last issue in 1971.
For Souffles: On Deep Listening and Active Reception, a group of cultural practitioners from different disciplines, such as writers, musicians, artists, poets, performers, as well as scientists, were invited to contribute to the discursive and performative program. It will also investigate how these traditions have been accessed and preserved in different media over the years, including publications.
The program is divided into two days, November 14 and 15, the first based on the spiritual practice of listening to rhythm and its resonance in the body, and the second focused on breathing to create and claim spaces and existence, and on the legacy of Souffles magazine.
Chief curator Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung
Co-curators Alya Sebti, Anna Roberta Goetz, Thiago de Paula Souza
Co-curator at large Keyna Eleison
Strategy and communication advisor Henriette Gallus
Curatorial assistants André Pitol, Leonardo Matsuhei
Local producer Youssef Sebti
Local PR Zora El Hajji
Realization Fundação Bienal de São Paulo
Bigidi mè
pa tonbé!
Totter,
but never fall!
Dec 5–7, 2024
Thurs, 6pm – 8pm
Fri, 10am – 5pm
Sat, 10:30am – 9pm
Lafabri’k
Les Abymes, Grande-Terre, Guadeloupe
With Anaïs Verspan, Dory Sélèsprika, Fritz Naffer, Geordy Zodidat Alexis, Groupe Foubap, Lazaro Benitez, Dr. Léna Blou, Prof. Michelle Mycoo, Minia Biabiany, Olivier Marboeuf, Raymonde Torin, Santiago Quintana, Tiéno Muntu (Dr. Etienne Jean-Baptiste), and Yane Mareine
Continuing the series of Invocations, a sequence of programs traveling through four cities worldwide in anticipation of the 36th Bienal de São Paulo, the project arrives in Guadeloupe, a territory in Central America. This edition, titled Bigidi mè pa tonbé! [Totter, but never fall!], will be held from December 5 to 7 at Lafabri’k, a space led by choreographer, anthropologist, and educator Dr. Léna Blou, with dance as its central theme.
The core concept of this Invocation stems from bigidi, core element of the Guadeloupean dance gwoka. This dance, characterized by improvisation, alternates between moments of rupture and continuity in a constant effort to maintain balance. Léna Blou, a leading authority on this tradition, identifies bigidi and its mode of moving as the essential nature of the Caribbean being, which, in her words, “knows how to stabilize instability and transform disharmony into harmony.” Blou is also the creator of Bigidi’art, a concept linking dance to a life philosophy that embraces impermanence and adaptability as forms of survival and cultural resistance.
The Invocation features an extensive program bringing together twelve participants from diverse disciplines, including dance, music, poetry, visual arts, and sciences. Through performances, lectures, and workshops, they will share interdisciplinary approaches to the event’s central theme.
Chief curator Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung
Co-curators Alya Sebti, Anna Roberta Goetz, Thiago de Paula Souza
Co-curator at large Keyna Eleison
Strategy and communication advisor Henriette Gallus
Curatorial assistants André Pitol, Leonardo Matsuhei
Director – Lafabri’k Léna Blou
Local producer Hellen Rugard
Realization Fundação Bienal de São Paulo
Mawali–Taqsim:
Improvisation as a Space and Technology of Humanity
Feb 11–13, 2025
Tue, 7pm – 10pm
Wed, 10am – 7:45pm
Thurs, 10am – 9:15pm
Maru Maru Hotel & Golden Tulip Stonetown Boutique
Zanzibar
With Aisha Bakary (Hijab DJ), Bernard Ntahondi, Bi Mariam Hamdan, DCMA Young Stars, Khamis Muhamed, Mohamed Ameir Muombwa, Mohamed Ilyas, Rukia Ramadhani, Siti Muharam, Thabit Omar Kiringe, Thania Petersen, Tryphon Evarist and Uwaridi Female Band
Presentation by Mohamed Ameir Muombwa
The 36th Bienal de São Paulo continues its global journey with its third Invocation, titled Mawali–Taqsim: Improvisation as a Space and Technology of Humanity, which will take place in Zanzibar from February 11th to 13th, 2025. The Invocation will be hosted at Maru Maru Hotel and Golden Tulip Stonetown Boutique, with the Dhow Countries Music Academy (DCMA) as a partner institution.
The Invocation in Zanzibar focuses on the philosophical and artistic dimensions of Taarab, a musical genre that epitomizes the island’s cultural hybridity and resonates as a profound medium for expression, sentiment, and resilience. Improvisation, a fundamental part of Taarab music, offers a profound metaphor for human adaptability and interconnectedness.
Echoing the complexities of Zanzibar’s history – a crossroads of African, Arabic, Asian, and European influences – the third Invocation offers the possibility of reflecting on nuances and accents of humanity on an island that is a point of intersection of multiple cultures, philosophies, sciences. In the words of Djibril Diop Mambéty, art serves as “the grammar of our grandmothers,” and Taarab embodies this ethos through its eclectic blend of musical instruments, poetic lyrics, and improvisational techniques. Zanzibar’s cultural tapestry, reflected in its language, Swahili, and its emblematic Taarab music, provides the setting for this Invocation.
Chief curator Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung
Co-curators Alya Sebti, Anna Roberta Goetz, Thiago de Paula Souza
Co-curator at large Keyna Eleison
Strategy and communication advisor Henriette Gallus
Curatorial assistants André Pitol, Leonardo Matsuhei
Co-convener Bernard Ntahondi
Managing director – DCMA Halda Alkanaan
Local producer Thureiya Saleh
Realization Fundação Bienal de São Paulo