The Fundação Bienal de São Paulo and the Museu de Arte de Belém (MABE) present the Belém edition of the traveling exhibition program of the 36th Bienal de São Paulo – Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice, opening on September 25 and on view through November 29, 2026. This is the third time Belém has been included in the program, which debuted in the city in 2022 with the 34th edition, at Solar da Beira and Mercado Ver-o-Peso. In 2024, the 35th Bienal occupied Palácio Antônio Lemos, home of MABE, where it returns this year. The exhibition is signed by Vale.
The selection is curated by Anna Roberta Goetz and co-curated by Leonardo Matsuhei, both members of the 36th Bienal’s conceptual team, and brings together works by Aline Baiana, Ernest Cole, Forensic Architecture / Forensis, Hamedine Kane, Leila Alaoui, Mao Ishikawa, Ming Smith, Sérgio Soarez, Thania Petersen, and Wolfgang Tillmans.
The exhibition features works such as Ouro negro é a gente (2025), an audiovisual work by Aline Baiana that takes oil as the thread running through an investigation into notions of labour, belonging, and memory. Hamedine Kane’s Les Ressources – Le Ventre de l’Atlantique (2025) occupies two major sections of the exhibition with wooden installations and objects that map the Atlantic as a route of circulation for commodities, bodies, and accumulated histories. The exhibition also features works by photographers with exceptional careers whose work has had limited circulation in Brazil, such as Ming Smith. She presents large-format prints of analogue photographs documenting the Black North American cultural scene between the 1970s and 1990s, images that move between documentation and visual experimentation.
“The Belém edition of the traveling exhibition responds to the city’s sociopolitical history and to the ways in which it continues to shape its ecological, political, social, and spiritual realities. Water and rhythm are the threads running through the exhibition. As the gateway to the Amazon Basin, Belém has historically been shaped by the access that water provides—to territories and resources, to people and cultures—through histories of colonial expansion, enslavement, and extraction that continue to reverberate in the present. But water is also a conduit and transmitter: of rhythm, memory, and knowledge,” says Anna Roberta Goetz, curator of the exhibition.
For Andrea Pinheiro, president of Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, the traveling exhibition program stems from the conviction that the Bienal does not end when the Pavilion closes its doors. “Bringing selections from the main exhibition to as many people as possible, in different regions of the country, is part of what we understand as our institutional responsibility to democratise access to art,” she says.
“Bringing the 36th Bienal de São Paulo to MABE is a way of bringing contemporary art closer to the people of Belém and reaffirming that access to culture should be within everyone’s reach. At this moment of the museum’s reopening, hosting the Bienal also strengthens MABE as a space that is open to the city, dialogue, and new experiences,” says Michell Durans, Secretary of Culture of the Municipality of Belém.
The 36th Bienal’s traveling exhibition has been touring Brazil and abroad throughout 2026, with selections from the main exhibition already presented in Goiânia, Rio de Janeiro, Curitiba, Santos, Brasília, Santiago (Chile), Fortaleza, Recife, São José do Rio Preto, and Salvador, with forthcoming openings in Berlin (Germany), Belo Horizonte, Vitória, and Mexico City.
Accessibility and Inclusion
To expand access to the 36th Bienal de São Paulo, Fundação Bienal de São Paulo has expanded its audio guide programme for the traveling exhibitions. The exhibition features audio content dedicated to Hamedine Kane and Wolfgang Tillmans, accompanied by videos in Brazilian Sign Language (Libras). Easy Read texts about Forensic Architecture / Forensis and Mao Ishikawa are also available, along with explanatory content about the title of the 36th Bienal, its conceptual team, curatorial proposal, visual identity, and architecture. At the entrance, visitors can also find an Easy Read visitor guide, with large print and a Braille version.
Another way to deepen the visit is through the Bloomberg Connects app, which brings together additional information about all participants and suggested routes. To access content related to each work, simply open the app and enter the number indicated on the label next to the work.
Service
36th Bienal de São Paulo – Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice
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 communications advisor: Henriette Gallus
deputy co-curators: André Pitol, Leonardo Matsuhei
Belém traveling exhibition – Museu de Arte de Belém
curator: Anna Roberta Goetz
co-curator: Leonardo Matsuhei
exhibition design: Gisele de Paula
Sept 25 – Nov 29, 2026
Tue – Fri, 9 am – 4:30 pm
Sat – Sun, 9 am – 1 pm
Museu de Arte de Belém (MABE)
Palácio Antonio Lemos
Praça D. Pedro II, s/n, Cidade Velha
Belém, Brazil
free admission