The city of Belém, capital of Pará and gateway to the Brazilian Amazon, is also, this year, the global capital of climate, as it hosts in November COP 30, the UN conference on climate change. With the eyes of the world turned towards it, the city also hosts the 2nd edition of the Bienal das Amazônias, which brings together 74 artists and collectives from eight Pan-Amazonian and Caribbean countries showing their work until 30 November.
Where and until when
Opened on 27 August, at the Centro Cultural Bienal das Amazônias, in the historic centre of the Pará state capital, the young biennial is already regarded as one of the most relevant contemporary art events in the country and in the Global South, shifting the art world's attention beyond the dominant cultural axes.
The curatorial team
General curatorship is by the Ecuadorian Manuela Moscoso, based in Brazil, who relies on a collaborative structure, with the Colombian Sara Garzón as adjunct curator, Jean da Silva, from Pará, leading the public programme, and the Mexican Mónica Amieva in charge of pedagogical curatorship. Together, they form an international team that broadens the dialogues and the experimental dimension of the event.
The Amazon as a living territory, not a backdrop
The conception and coordination of the Bienal is the work of Lívia Condurú, who, in a statement to the magazine Arte!Brasileiros, said she sees the Bienal das Amazônias as an active voice at this moment when COP 30 approaches. For her, the Amazon cannot be treated merely as a backdrop for climate debates, but needs to be seen as a living, political and cultural territory. "Here we discuss mining, oil, extractivism, but we also invent ways out. We believe in micropolitics, in small collective actions which, added together, become weapons of resistance. The Bienal gives visibility to this".
The programme and all the information about the Bienal das Amazônias are on the event's website, which you can find here.
