The Fundação Bienal de São Paulo and Oficina Francisco Brennand announce the opening of the traveling exhibition of the 36th Bienal de São Paulo in Recife, marking another stage of the Bienal’s traveling exhibitions program. At Oficina Francisco Brennand, the exhibition Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice will be on view in the capital of Pernambuco from August 8 to October 18, 2026. The traveling exhibition is curated by the deputy co-curators of the 36th Bienal, André Pitol and Leonardo Matsuhei. The exhibition is sponsored by Petrobras.
Presented systematically since 2011, the traveling exhibitions have become a fundamental extension of the Bienal de São Paulo, allowing artworks and debates first presented at the Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion to be reconfigured through dialogue with diverse local contexts, generating new readings and fostering relationships with audiences beyond the Bienal’s main exhibition venue.
This marks the second time the Bienal de São Paulo’s traveling exhibitions program has come to Recife. The first was in 2011, when the 29th Bienal de São Paulo occupied three institutions in Pernambuco: the Museu de Arte Moderna Aloísio Magalhães (MAMAM), Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, and the Museu do Estado de Pernambuco. Fifteen years later, the program returns to the state, this time at Oficina Francisco Brennand, the monumental museum-studio created by the Pernambuco-born ceramist and sculptor Francisco Brennand from 1971 onward within the ruins of a former brick and tile factory in the Várzea district, on the banks of the Capibaribe River and surrounded by remnants of the Atlantic Forest.
The traveling exhibition in Recife takes on particular significance considering the manguebit movement as one of the conceptual foundations of this edition. Articulated around the manifesto “Caranguejos com cérebro” [Crabs with Brains], by Fred Zero Quatro and Renato L., manguebit understands the estuary, where fresh and salt water meet, as a metaphor for a territory of negotiation between distinct worlds, where differences coexist and generate new forms of life and language. Within the context of the 36th Bienal, both the movement itself and the city of Recife, together with its estuary formed by the Capibaribe and Beberibe rivers, function not merely as geographical references but as conceptual paradigms.
The Recife exhibition brings together works by 14 participants: Akinbode Akinbiyi, Alberto Pitta, Forensic Architecture / Forensis, Helena Uambembe, Julianknxx, Metta Prakrutti, Ming Smith, Nádia Taquary, Rebeca Carapiá, Shuvinai Ashoona, Suchitra Mattai, Vilanismo, Wolfgang Tillmans, and Zózimo Bulbul.
For André Pitol, the traveling exhibition completes a movement that began with the conception of the exhibition itself. “Presenting works by artists such as Helena Uambembe and Wolfgang Tillmans in Recife is, in fact, a way of bringing back the cultural complexity that was crucial to imagining the curatorial project and the development of commissioned works for the exhibition.”
For Leonardo Matsuhei, the estuary is the metaphor that structures the exhibition: a territory of negotiation between distinct worlds, where differences are not erased but instead generate new forms of life, culture, and language. “Bringing this exhibition to Recife further expands this hybrid way of existing in the world,” he says.
“The traveling exhibitions program is one of the clearest expressions of the Fundação Bienal’s commitment to democratizing access to contemporary art. The decision to bring the 36th Bienal de São Paulo to Oficina Francisco Brennand was motivated by the powerful reunion between Recife’s cultural vitality and the Bienal,” says Andrea Pinheiro, president of the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo.
“Hosting the traveling exhibition of the 36th Bienal de São Paulo at Oficina Francisco Brennand is a milestone for the museum-studio and for Pernambuco’s cultural landscape. This collaboration inaugurates the celebrations of Francisco Brennand’s centenary, reaffirming Oficina’s vocation as a place of encounters, where art, nature, and critical thought come together to generate new ways of understanding the world. More than hosting one of Latin America’s leading contemporary art exhibitions, we are strengthening a space for dialogue between different forms of knowledge and perspectives, preserving Francisco’s legacy precisely by keeping it alive and in constant conversation with our own time,” says Marcos Baptista, president of Oficina Francisco Brennand.
Beyond the presentation of artworks, the traveling exhibitions program includes a broad educational component, with training for local teams, online and in-person meetings, pedagogical support, and activities for diverse audiences, such as guided tours, talks, teacher workshops, and student programs.
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
Traveling exhibition Recife – Oficina Francisco Brennand
curators: André Pitol and Leonardo Matsuhei
exhibition design: Tiago Guimarães
Aug 8 – Oct 18, 2026
Tue – Sun, 9 am – 5 pm
Oficina Francisco Brennand
Rua Diogo de Vasconcelos, S/N – Várzea
Recife, Brazil
admission
general admission: R$50, reduced admission: R$25
for residents of Pernambuco
general admission: R$40, reduced admission: R$20
Free admission on Tuesdays and on the opening day
Please check the admission policy for eligibility for reduced-price and free tickets.