From November 15, 2024 to February 28, 2025, one of the most significant artistic events in the countries of the South will take place: the XV Havana Biennial.
A most distinctive aspect of the Havana Biennial is its ability to use the city itself as a stage, although exhibitions, installations and performances in traditional spaces such as art galleries, studios or museums are wide and varied. Artists are invited to create together in communities, for an experience of useful exchange and it is expected to extend to other cities on the island.
With the theme this time of ‘Shared Horizons’, the XV Biennial has been designed as an effective network that is committed to respect for differences and the appreciation of knowledge and experiences that move away from hegemonic models.
The Biennial will unfold from three conceptual cores: mediation, collaboration and interdisciplinarity, as Nelson Ramírez de Arellano, director of the Wifredo Lam Contemporary Arts Centre in Havana and of the event, explained to the press. “We aspire that artists not only live the experience of Cuba, but also believe together with its inhabitants in the communities”, he said.
The Havana Biennial is organized as a research and curatorial process, and all participants are selected according to certain parameters such as their submission’s consideration of the theme. In this process, the curatorial team of the Wifredo Lam Centre in Havana receives the support of colleagues from other countries who contribute their suggestions and become the necessary links in the dialogue with the artists.
The Havana Biennial, after 40 years continues to broaden its outlook. The organisers at the Wifredo Lam Contemporary Art Centre in Havana, intend to analyze its trajectory, revisit and rethink some of the themes that have characterized it, and create new networks of communication and collaboration. This is their statement on the theme of Shared Horizons.
Shared Horizons
“Beyond all differences, there is a space of knowledge, expectations and feelings that most human beings share. Seeking those points of connection, those common areas that allow us to move forward together toward a more equitable and sustainable future should be our main motto. Close to celebrating its 40th anniversary, the Havana Biennial continues to share those horizons where utopia dwells and convenes its 15th edition guided by the idea of weaving new communication and collaboration networks that will allow us to continue growing, deepening and broadening our range of influences, in pursuit of peace and a better coexistence between humankind and nature.
“Imbued with the spirit of the celebration and facing the possibility of reunions, we propose to make an analysis of the event’s trajectory, to retake and rethink some of the themes that have been transversal to its history and that have evolved over time showing new nuances. What could be then that characterizing element of the Havana Biennial? It is Cuba, its people committed day by day to preserve values of solidarity and dignity, with the creativity of both artists and non-artists. It is the awareness that only by working together it is possible to realize the dreamed work and, above all, the full confidence that it will be a collective and solidarity work. It is our goal in this edition to highlight this network of relationships that make the development of the event possible.
“We envision this Biennial as an effective network that promotes a coexistence based on respect for differences and the value of other knowledge and forms of existence (and resistance) far from the dominant model. We are interested in creators and projects that work collaboratively, beyond the limits of their respective disciplines, and that are capable of developing actions that mediate between all strata and facets of society and culture. We will seek to strengthen collective work to achieve a common good.
“As has happened on other occasions, but now even more emphatically, we want the main stage of this biennial to be neither the galleries nor the spaces traditionally dedicated to art. It is our intention that the artists not only live the experience of Cuba, but that they create together with its inhabitants in the communities and that they are able to develop meditation strategies that allow a greater rapprochement among all.
“We invite you to walk together, to share the horizon, the joys and sorrows of the road in search of a utopia that, although it seems unattainable, drives us to be better and less selfish every day.”
The 14th Havana Biennial, from November 12, 2021 to April 30, 2022, was visited by more than one million people and brought together 655 artists, 484 Cubans and 171 foreigners from more than 30 countries. The vast majority presented their projects amongst 58 exhibitions and 71 events in the nine Cuban provinces that served as sub-venues for the Biennial.
The 14th Biennial was attended by artists from the United States, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Panama, Peru, El Salvador, Chile, Dominican Republic, Uruguay, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, Paraguay and Bermuda. Also present were works by creators from Japan, the Philippines, Jordan, Iran, Spain, France, Germany, Sweden, Portugal, Austria, England, Belgium, Scotland, Finland, Italy, Benin, South Africa, Senegal and Cameroon.
The Havana Biennial, founded in 1984, is a contemporary art event organized by the Wifredo Lam Center whose fundamental purpose is to contribute to the better knowledge and dissemination of the visual arts of Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean, and their diasporas. It is considered “the first biennial of Latin American art”.
The Havana Biennial has focused its attention on artists from the South whose works represent concerns and conflicts – often universal in scope – common to their regions, making Havana an important meeting and exhibition place for “non-Western” art.
Report based on reports by BiennialFoundation.org and CubaMinrex
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