The Bienal de São Paulo is one of the oldest and most influential biennials in the world. This year, it’s also taking place in Berlin, at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW). Under the title Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice, humanity is understood as a verb — as something that must be practiced anew, again and again.
Much like Oscar Niemeyer’s pavilion in Ibirapuera Park in São Paulo, where the Biennial was held in 2025, HKW forms a permeable threshold between architecture and landscape. Both venues align with the exhibition’s central questions. How can we encounter other people, landscapes, animals, plants and memories without imposing our own path on them? How do we create a coexistence of care?
As ever, there is a lot going on inside HKW. Between delicate floral curtains and a clattering soundscape, there’s plenty to discover. More than thirty international artists, including Akinbode Akinbiyi, Aline Baiana, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Emeka Ogboh, Forensic Architecture, Laila Hida, Julianknxx, Ming Smith and Wolfgang Tillmans, explore themes such as memory, belonging and living together. They also address the colonial legacies of modernity and forms of resistance against dehumanization and the plundering of nature. (read more)
The Biennial presents beauty as a political force to be found in the everyday. Fragmented and polyphonic, but no less powerful. The exhibition invites you to stray from the prescribed path and open yourself to other perspectives and unexpected connections. The Berlin edition was curated by Alya Sebti and can be seen at HKW until 06.12.2026. If you’d like to go deeper, regular tours offer a chance to explore the exhibition together. Time to set off on a journey beyond the well-trodden path.
Text: Inga Krumme / Photos: Hanna Wiedemann, Mathias Völzke
Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10, 10557 Berlin–Tiergarten; map
36th Bienal de São Paulo until 06.12.2026.
@hkw_berlin
