Alya Sebti and Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung will give a guided tour through the exhibition. Aline Baiana, Emeka Ogboh, and Wolfgang Tillmans, alongside several other participating artists will also be present to introduce their works.

With:

Amina Agueznay, Malika Agueznay, Akinbode Akinbiyi, Leo Asemota, Maria Auxiliadora, Aline Baiana, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Rebeca Carapiá, Manauara Clandestina, Christopher Cozier, Gervane de Paula, Théodore Diouf, Juliana dos Santos, Cevdet Erek, Theo Eshetu, Tanka Fonta, Forensic Architecture, Laila Hida, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Leiko Ikemura, Mao Ishikawa, Julianknxx, Lidia Lisbôa, Mohamed Melehi, Emeka Ogboh, Olu Oguibe, Alberto Pitta, Ana Raylander Mártis dos Anjos, Ming Smith, Sérgio Soarez, Chaïbia Talal, Wolfgang Tillmans

Conceived by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, alongside co-curators Alya Sebti, Anna Roberta Goetz, and Thiago de Paula Souza, co-curator at large Keyna Eleison, strategy and communications advisor Henriette Gallus, and deputy co-curators André Pitol and Leonardo Matsuhei. The Berlin edition is curated by Alya Sebti.

With the exhibition Not All Travellers Walk Roads—Of Humanity as Practice, the 36th Bienal de São Paulo comes to Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in Berlin. Taking place in Germany for the very first time, the Berlin edition of one of the oldest and most influential biennials unfolds as a distinct constellation of artistic positions, including newly conceived, readapted, and site-specific works.

Departing from Conceição Evaristo's poem 'Da calma e do silêncio' [Of calm and silence], in which she writes: 'Not all travellers / walk roads / there are submerged worlds / that only the silence / of poetry penetrates', the exhibition understands listening as one of the core tenets of the practice of humanity. Through such close attunement, it becomes possible to enter into relation—with other beings, with lands and waters, with the multigenerational lineages we carry within us—and foster spaces of coexistence and care.

This notion of relation not only connects São Paulo and Berlin, but also the two respective exhibition sites. Designed as a modernist landmark, Oscar Niemeyer's Bienal Pavilion is located in São Paulo's Ibirapuera Park, itself shaped by the waters of the Córrego do Sapateiro, while Hugh Stubbins's HKW building of the same era is situated at the edge of the Tiergarten, close to the river Spree. Both sites form porous thresholds between architecture and landscape, interior and exterior, human and more-than-human worlds. Here, the exhibition's guiding metaphor of the estuary as a site of encounter gains particular resonance: a place where different waters meet, sustaining life through cultivation, interdependence, reciprocity, and shared vulnerability.

The exhibition rethinks humanity as a verb—a living practice that can renegotiate and dismantle prevailing asymmetries. Across installations, performances, sound works, storytelling, and spatial interventions, the participating artists critically engage the political and colonial inheritances embedded within modernity. In doing so, they articulate forms of resistance to dehumanization, extractivism, and monocultural thinking from São Paulo to Berlin and elsewhere. At the same time, the works cultivate gestures of care, nurturing, and interdependence that extend beyond the human, engaging with animal and plant life, memory, and spirit. Beauty emerges here as a political force, rooted in the ordinary, the fractured, and the unfinished.

Not All Travellers Walk Roads—Of Humanity as Practice is an invitation to trace those paths in pursuit of that practice. What routes do we take in that undertaking? How do we afford ourselves the privilege of going off track, off the road, embracing errancy, getting lost, finding other worlds? Bringing together more than thirty international artists across a wide range of practices, this abridged Berlin edition of the 36th Bienal de São Paulo calls for joy, imagination, and dreaming not as escape, but as vital ways of conjugating humanity.

More information: hkw.de/NotAllTravellers

Opening Program

The exhibition opens with a three-day program of guided tours, artist talks, performances, poetry, film, and music. Entry is free during the opening weekend.

Friday, 11 September

17:30 Exhibition Opening
18:15–19:00 Performance Julianknxx: Attuned in the Bantutronic 
19:30–20:15 Opening Speeches  In English with simultaneous translation into German
20:30–22:00 Concert Ray Lema Quintet 
22:00–00:00 DJ Set Emeka Ogboh

Saturday, 12 September 

12:00–13:00 Walk Through the Exhibition with... Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung and Alya Sebti - In English
14:00–15:00 Artist Talk  Aline Baiana In English
15:00–16:00 Artist Talk Vilanismo in conversation with Akinbode Akinbiyi  In English
16:00–18:00 On Dance as a Common Ground for Critical Practices Panel Discussion, Participatory Dance Practice Felix Dompreh, Pascale 'Baba' Altenburger, Nora Amin, 'H' Patten - In English
18:00–19:00 Poetry Reading Abena P.A. Busia In English
19:00–21:00 Film screening & Artist Talk Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn: The Unburied Sounds of a Troubled Horizon

Sunday, 13 September 
12:00–13:00 Walk Through the Exhibition with... the Education Team of the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo- In Portuguese
13:45–14:15 Family Tour Art Love Affair

with Lisa Vasvari, Clara Kramer -In German, English language assistance possible
15:00–18:00 Kinderdisco Special In collaboration with KUYUM Tanzplattform
15:00–16:00 Walk Through the Exhibition with... Emilienne Fernande Bodo- In German