26-05-2025
Biennale of Sydney curator Hoor Al Qasimi shares title and first artists for 2026 event
Australian artists Warraba Weatherall, Marian Abboud and Abdul Abdullah, who won the Packing Room Prize earlier this month, are among the first artists announced for the 2026 Biennale of Sydney, titled "Rememory".
Fifteen Australian and 22 international artists and collectives are on the line-up, including the Decolonising Art Architecture Project from Palestine; and First Nations artists Cannupa Hanska Luger from the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, and Secwepemcúlecw artist Tania Willard.
It's the first festival from artistic director Hoor Al Qasimi, the biennale's first Arab curator, and the first woman to be appointed since 2018.
Last year, Al Qasimi, a curator from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), was dubbed the most influential person in the art world.
Al Qasimi heads up the UAE's Sharjah Art Foundation and Biennial, and this year becomes the first non-Japanese person to helm the Aichi Triennale, one of the world's largest international arts festivals, held in Japan.
In beginning to curate next year's event in Sydney, she has visited artists working in remote communities, including Wendy Hubert, whose work also features in the Aichi Trienniale.
"I want to learn more by being [in Australia]," she says. "I want to meet more artists.
"Once we open, I'll be able to go to more art centres and meet more people for future projects, because I feel like there are so many [Australian] artists whose work might be relevant for any other festivals in the world," she says.
The title of the 2026 Biennale of Sydney — Rememory — comes from African American writer Toni Morrison's 1987 novel Beloved.
"Re-memory was used in Beloved to look at the story of enslaved African Americans in the United States," Al Qasimi says.
"It really made sense [as a title for the biennale] because it can be as open or as focused as you like.
"It's about looking back. It's about memory. A lot of Indigenous communities and diaspora and people from all over the world, our stories are passed down as storytelling — it's somebody's memory that's being passed down."
Al Qasimi is interested in moments in history, and who wrote that history — including whose voices were left out, for example, Indigenous communities, women, young people and the working class.
"What about the voices that have been suppressed, or the voices that haven't had the platform to be able to speak about their history in their own words?" she says.
A visitor to the Biennale of Sydney for the last 12 years, Al Qasimi has noticed how the festival has expanded over that time to include more of those voices. She hopes to continue that trend.
While most of the artworks set to feature at next year's biennale are under wraps, one the artistic director can speak about resonates strongly with her interest in history.
It's by Australian activist artists Michiel Dolk and Merilyn Fairskye, who painted a set of 16 murals in Woolloomooloo in the 80s, celebrating the suburb's people and history. Their work for the biennale will be on display close by, at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
The Woolloomooloo murals were painted a decade after the approval of a redevelopment proposal that planned to transform the residential area into mostly high-rise office blocks and hotel skyscrapers.
To pull together this project, Al Qasimi has already spent time talking to the artists and members of the Woolloomooloo community, including a woman who was painted for the mural when she was just 13 years old.
"Those are the stories I'm interested in — very personal stories," she says.
The venues for the 2026 Biennale of Sydney have also been announced, with a focus on Western Sydney, as Penrith Regional Gallery joins the event for the first time.
"I want to connect a lot with people in Western Sydney and the diaspora," Al Qasimi says. "I want to work with the Arab community or with the Vietnamese or Sudanese communities.
"I'm interested in bringing the biennale to the people who might not be interested in art or might not be interested in going to venues that they feel are too far for them.
"Sometimes a lot of museums or institutions make people feel a little bit inhibited, or they feel like it's elitist. So, what spaces are more accessible, and how do we get people to be part of the project so that they can feel like it's for them?"
The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), which has hosted the biennale since 1998, is a notable omission from next year's event. In 2023, the MCA reported an operating loss of $2.6 million, which led the gallery to reintroduce entry fees earlier this year.
The venues were a curatorial decision, Al Qasimi says.
"With the resources [I have], I'm more interested in putting time and effort in a place that didn't have it before," she says.
"I don't want to have a space where there's just a few artists here, a few artists there. I want to have a collective presence: When you go to one location, there's a lot to do and a lot to see."
The biennale will also see Al Qasimi collaborate with First Nations Curatorial Fellow Bruce Johnson Mclean, and community ambassadors Claudia Chidiac and Paula Abood, who will offer advice on community engagement in Western Sydney.
Last year, when Al Qasimi was announced as the next curator of the Biennale of Sydney, taking over from Cosmin Costinaș and Inti Guerrero, it was reported by one media outlet that some donors threatened to leave the festival due to Al Qasimi's support for Palestine.
"To be honest, I haven't really paid attention to that," Al Qasimi says. "I try not to be bothered by a lot of these voices because I'm a guest here.
"My work is with artists and caring for artists and making sure that we can do a project that is accessible to community, to people, that's inviting.
A spokesperson for the biennale told ABC Arts conversations with donors are "ongoing": "The sponsors and donors change for every edition, so there is ebb and flow each time. Each edition there are returning and new donors, who decide to sponsor based on their interests and the vision for the edition."
Al Qasimi wants to break down the restrictive categories used to describe artists, like 'women artists' or 'Arab artists'.
She first found herself being pigeonholed when she was studying painting in London in the early 00s.
"A tutor said to me: 'Your work is not very Islamic.' And I said, 'Why are you imposing this category on me?'" she recalls.
"People are just people. They just want to do the work and express themselves.
"As much as possible, I try to bring artists together because the things that people have faced around the world, they sometimes feel like they're facing them in isolation.
"But actually it's very connected."
The Biennale of Sydney runs from March 14-June 14 2026 at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Campbelltown Arts Centre, Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney, Penrith Regional Gallery and White Bay Power Station.
