Hello, I’m Xênia França, and together with Rico Dalasam, Mel Duarte, and Dandara Queiroz, I’ll be accompanying you through the 36th Bienal de São Paulo – Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice, with this accessible audioguide.
This edition is led by the general curator Prof. Dr. Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, alongside his team of co-curators Alya Sebti, Anna Roberta Goetz, and Thiago de Paula Souza, as well as co-curator at large Keyna Eleison and communications and strategy consultant Henriette Gallus.
The main proposal is to think of humanity as a living practice, based on coexistence, listening, and the reevaluation of inequalities. To this end, the curatorship is organized into three axes, guided by the metaphor of the estuary — a place where different waters meet and create a space of coexistence. This image, inspired by Brazilian philosophies, landscapes, and mythologies, represents the diversity of encounters that shaped Brazil’s history and suggests that humanity can be transformed through listening and dialogue between different beings and worlds.
The first axis emphasizes time and space, proposing to slow down and pay attention to the small things and beings around us. Inspired by the poem Da calma e do silêncio by Conceição Evaristo, it highlights the importance of listening and perceiving the invisible, reconnecting us to nature and to differences.
The second axis invites the public to see themselves in the other. Drawing from the poem Une conscience en fleur pour autrui by René Depestre, it seeks to reflect on how we recognize ourselves in our relationships and to question social barriers, proposing coexistence based on empathy and collective care.
The third axis addresses encounters and the marks of coloniality. Just as estuaries unite different waters, this section reflects on the mixture of peoples that formed Brazil — Indigenous, European, and enslaved African — and the inequalities that still persist. Inspired by the manguebit movement and works such as La beauté intraitable du monde by Chamoiseau and Glissant, this axis seeks to show how differences can generate new paths of creation, resistance, and beauty.
And since the exhibition is very large and it would be impossible to cover all the works, we selected twenty artists for this inclusive audioguide, spanning all floors and different artistic languages.
Access the content, get to know the artists and the described works, keeping in mind that not everyone sees things the same way, and this is an inclusive audioguide. We want this audioguide to truly be for everyone, which is why it is also available in Brazilian Sign Language (Libras).
Shall we begin?
This audioguide is a project of the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo and was developed with the accessibility consultancy of Mais Diferenças.