With an invitation to reflect on what it means to “be human”—a practice, an action, a way of inhabiting the world—the 36th Bienal de São Paulo, Latin America's most important art event, curated by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, opened its doors to the public on September 6, 2025 and will run until January 11, 2026. The Cameroon-born and Berlin-based curator, author and biotechnologist is the founder of arts space SAVVY Contemporary and the current director and chief curator of Haus der Kulturen der Welt. This edition of the Bienal de São Paulo brings together more than 120 artists from five continents under the theme Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice, inspired by a verse by Afro-Brazilian poet Conceição Evaristo.

This Biennial is built on horizontal relationships – between times, geographies and practices – that remind us that there is no single way of being human – Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, curator

The selection of artists was inspired by the migratory patterns of birds: stories, languages, aesthetics and rhythms that cross borders permeate the works—from painting to installation, from video to performance—exhibited at the Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion. Since 1957, the Bienal has been held in this Pavilion, an icon of Brazilian modernism designed by Oscar Niemeyer in the heart of Ibirapuera Park. “This Biennial is built on horizontal relationships, between times, geographies and practices, that remind us that there is no single way of being human,” said Ndikung at the press conference, alongside his curatorial team: Alya Sebti, Anna Roberta Goetz, Thiago de Paula Souza, Keyna Eleison and Henriette Gallus. The opening included a moving performance by the Heliópolis youth choir, a renowned social project founded in 1996 after a fire devastated the Heliópolis favela in São Paulo. The choir’s young singers, who rose unexpectedly from the audience to deliver a cappella pieces, filled the packed auditorium with their voices, a moment of both artistic beauty and social resonance that set the tone for the Bienal’s opening.

Ndikung explained that using bird migration as a methodological guide allowed the curatorial team to avoid classifications based on borders and nation-states and to think about humanity from the perspective of constant movement and transformation. "Humanity is not a concept, it is an everyday practice. We live in a world shaken by migration emergencies and social inequalities and it is precisely in these moments of darkness that the practice of humanity becomes indispensable. To be human is to choose compassion and generosity every day,” he said at the press conference.

The curatorial team took inspiration from species such as the red-tailed hawk, travelling between the Americas, the ruff flying from Central Asia to North Africa and the Arctic tern crossing the poles. Like birds, artists carry memories, experiences and languages across borders, migrating not only out of necessity but also as a form of continuous transformation.

The building's facade, covered by a monumental curtain of multicoloured braided fabric strips, already hints at the spirit of the exhibition. Inside, there is an abundance of works made from everyday, fragile, discarded or recycled materials that evoke both global economies and forms of resistance. The pavilion’s interior features undulating ramps and curved mezzanines that contrast with the rigidity of its orthogonal exterior grid. The biennial opens with an immersive installation by Precious Okoyomon, a queer artist of Nigerian origin based in London, who creates an unsettling forest with plants and living materials that mutate over time. The scene, somewhere between beauty and menace, reminds us that nature is an active player and not just a backdrop.

Indo-Caribbean artist and storyteller Suchitra Mattai (1973, Georgetown), based in Los Angeles, poetically navigates between the waters of the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean. Made with embroidery and woven textiles, her works explore family archives of oceanic migrations. She uses her ancestral legacy to challenge and question the period of colonial forced labour, which promoted the immigration of Asian communities (mainly from India and China) as substitutes for labour in the Caribbean after the abolition of slavery.

Berlin-based Sara Sejin Chang (Busan, 1977) works across film, writing, installation and performance to question how Eurocentric systems of categorisation and racialisation continue to shape contemporary society. In her video installation Dismemberment (2024), she creates the allegorical figure of a gallerist named Europe, while introducing Korean deities such as the Great Grandmother (Daesin Halmeoni) and the Mountain God (Sansin). The clash between Enlightenment rationality and Korean shamanic ritual materialises in a healing ceremony, in which the ailing Europe is dismembered and purified. In this way, Chang interweaves the European and the Korean to point to the persistence of colonial hierarchies and, at the same time, proposes their symbolic transformation.

On the third floor of the pavilion, visitors encounter Brasilidades by Brazilian artist Moisés Patrício (1984, São Paulo). In his practice, he takes ceramic elements from the Candomblé religion, such as clay bowls, jars and vases, and wraps them until they are completely covered with different elements, making their form or trace disappear and rendering them unrecognisable, as an allegory of the disappearance of the symbolic marks of Afro-Brazilian cultures in the construction of the country’s imaginary. Likewise and located directly opposite this piece, is the installation Catástrofe orquestra #1 by the self-taught Brazilian artist Antonio Tarsis (Salvador, 1995), who grew up in the Arraial do Retiro favela in Salvador and began his artistic practice at the age of 14. His work consists of a series of panels made with reddish matchboxes that hang from the ceiling, together with fragments of the same material scattered on the floor. Here, with a landscape that alludes to the material impact of humanity’s ecological footprint, the artist affirms the persistence of life, which resonates in an almost silent symphony, like the little matchboxes as they move. Meanwhile, a labyrinth made entirely of tree branches and clay constitutes the work of Sallisa Rosa (Goiânia, 1986; lives in Rio de Janeiro), who questions the ancestral memory present in elements of nature, like branches, clay, rivers.

Monumental, colourful and large in scale, the work of Zimbabwean artist Moffat Takadiwa (who exhibited at the 60th Venice Biennale) comprises “textile pieces” in which he interweaves close links between a critique of consumerism and inequality. By gathering and classifying fragments of discarded everyday products, packaging and threads of various materials, Takadiwa creates multicoloured, meticulously embroidered objects—in this case an immense structure that symbolises Noah’s Ark, that envelops the public in a textile blanket covered with plastic and metal waste, computer keyboards, plastic bottle caps and disposable remnants, with a view to a future grounded in sustainability and care. “Many artists use everyday objects that speak to trade routes, ecologies and global economies. This also reveals new forms of colonialism,” curatorial team member Anna Roberta Goetz explained to STIR.

One of the most acclaimed names in the biennial is German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans, also known for his contributions to pop culture, like the cover of American singer-songwriter Frank Ocean’s Blonde. For this Bienal, Wolfgang presents a new video installation inside a dark room, where two perpendicular walls are transformed into vast projection surfaces. The images—shown individually or in combinations of pairs, trios or overlays—bring together scenes from urban daily life and from nature: mud sticking to a boot, fallen leaves on dry ground, a train suspended over a narrow stream, colourful folders in a cabinet, the crown of a tree, a rushing waterfall, a piece of fruit hanging from a branch. These images are interwoven with an equally diverse soundscape: the blowing of wind and the chirping of crickets mix with engine noises, the distant passage of an aeroplane and human snoring. Also surrounded by curtains, in her own personal space, is the work of the Cuban artist María Magdalena Campos-Pons, who for 40 years has created works based on an autobiographical narrative rooted in her family histories and her origins as a Cuban artist, descended from Hispanic and Chinese immigrants and from Nigerian slaves brought to the island in the 19th century. The space dedicated to Campos-Pons is organised as a large circle where translucent fabrics printed with floral motifs descend from the ceiling in concentric rings. At the centre stands the sculpture Macuto (2025), made of metal painted in warm tones of red, orange and yellow. The piece, inspired by the form of a tropical heliconia, serves as the ritual axis of the space, around which the public can sit. Periodically, diffusers release fragrances of herbs and spices associated with healing practices, while loudspeakers project chants, voices and Afro-diasporic rhythms, reinforcing the work’s communal and spiritual dimension.

Another collective proposal that attracted attention was that of the Metta Pracrutti group, made up of 17 Dalit artists from India. Their project Monsoon (2025) includes videos and installations that address the tensions of the caste system still in force today. Indian artist and curator Prabhakar Kamble exhibits assemblages with bronze, string and terracotta that rescue historically neglected crafts. “Objects produced by lower castes have historically been degraded, even if they are beautiful. My intention is to make these practices visible and show how tradition masks everyday discrimination,” the artist said to STIR.

One of the highlights of the exhibition is the work of Chinese artist Song Dong, a key figure in contemporary art, who presents Borrow Light (2025), a mirror installation inspired by amusement parks and feng shui, which blurs the boundaries between interior and exterior and multiplies perspectives.

In a way, the 36 Bienal de São Paulo does not seek to define humanity but to practise it. By inscribing migrations, rivers and rituals into the body of the Pavilion, it turns art into a public practice of care, memory and shared conflict. As a whole, the exhibition displays languages ranging from painting and sculpture to performance, sound and collective experiments, with a strong emphasis on community practices, ecologies and non-Western cosmologies. What distinguishes this edition is not only the diversity of voices, but also the desire to show humanity as a plural verb: a set of gestures, memories and actions that are practised and transformed in common.

The São Paulo Biennial 2025, ‘Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice’, is on view from September 6 - January 11, 2026, at the Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, São Paulo.