What Water Knows, The Land Remembers

The Toronto Biennial of Art (the Biennial/TBA) has announced the confirmed Canadian and international artists participating in the second edition of the Biennial, on from March 26 to June 5, 2022. Tairone Bastien, Candice Hopkins, and Katie Lawson are the curatorial team for the free, 72-day event with contributions from former TBA curators Clare Butcher and Myung-Sun Kim.

As the curatorial team has worked on two editions of the Biennial, a number of artists from 2019 are returning in 2022 as part of a longer-term engagement, including Aycoobo (Wilson Rodríguez), Judy Chicago, Shezad Dawood, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Ange Loft with Jumblies Theatre & Arts, Jumana Manna, Abel Rodríguez, Susan Schuppli, and Syrus Marcus Ware.

Commissioned and invited artists contributing to TBA 2022 exhibitions and programs include: Derya Akay, Ghazaleh Avarzamani, Andrea Carlson, Jeffrey Gibson, Hanyaterra | Jatiwangi Art Factory*, Marguerite Humeau, Timothy Yanick Hunter*, Tsēmā Igharas and Erin Siddall, Janet Kigusiuq, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Amy Malbeuf, Victoria Mamnguqsualuk, Anne Zanele Mutema*, Joar Nango, Eduardo Navarro, Aki Onda, Jessie Oonark, Paul Pfeiffer, Dana Prieto, Augustas Serapinas, Buhlebezwe Siwani*, and Denyse Thomasos. They join the following list of previously announced 2022 Biennial artists: Nadia Belerique, Brian Jungen, Waqas Khan, Mata Aho Collective, Eric-Paul Riege, and Camille Turner.

*Artists invited by Chiedza Pasipanodya and Sebastian de Line, Curatorial Fellows for TBA 2022.

In total, the Biennial will bring together 37 local and international artists, hailing from over 18 places of origin including Argentina, Canada, England, France, Germany, Indonesia, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Lebanon, Lithuania, Norway, Pakistan, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago, United States, and Zimbabwe, as well as Indigenous communities in Canada, Colombia, Aotearoa | New Zealand, Norway, and the United States. The range of contributors reflects Toronto’s status as one of the most culturally diverse cities in the world and the Biennial’s commitment to inspire people, bridge communities, and contribute to global conversations. Additional participants will be announced in February 2022 along with details for the Biennial’s extensive public programs and creative partnerships.

TBA 2019, titled The Shoreline Dilemma, was the first chapter of the two-part biennial, tracing various interconnected narratives and ecologies of the ever-changing shoreline of Lake Ontario. These connections revealed systems of resistance against and movement away from industrial colonial culture, uncovering polyphonic histories embedded in and around the shoreline.

The second chapter of the Biennial, What Water Knows, the Land Remembers, will explore locations near above-ground and hidden tributaries that channel water into Lake Ontario, as well as the ravines that shape the city’s geography. Extending the interconnections of those locations and expanding the notions of the central question from 2019, “What does it mean to be in relation?,” the curators envision expansive forms of kinship—with each other, their collaborators and the more-than-human, a belief that humans are in deep relation with other living beings. To frame and help guide their collaboration, the curators have generated a lexicon—a shared vocabulary—to ground their thinking and ongoing processes of exhibition-making.

Preliminary list of venue and exhibition partners

Exhibition venues: 5 Lower Jarvis Street; 72 Perth Avenue; Arsenal Contemporary Art; Colborne Lodge; Fort York National Historic Site; Mercer Union; Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto; Small Arms Inspection Building; and Textile Museum of Canada.

Exhibition partners: Aga Khan Museum; Agnes Etherington Art Centre; Art Gallery of York University; Art Toronto; Artica Svalbard; ArtworxTO: Toronto’s Year of Public Art 2021-2022; Castlepoint Numa; Evergreen; FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art; Gardiner Museum; Institut Français; Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts; Mercer Union; MOMENTA Biennale de l’image; Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto; Oakville Galleries; OCAD University; Office for Contemporary Art Norway; Textile Museum of Canada; The Daniels Corporation; and Toronto Sculpture Garden.

About TBA: The Toronto Biennial of Art’s mission is to make contemporary art available to everyone. For 10 weeks every two years, local and international Biennial artists transform Toronto and the surrounding regions with artworks, talks, and performances. The Biennial’s free, citywide programming aims to inspire individuals, bridge communities, and contribute to global conversations.

Media Contact: Libby Mark or Heather Meltzer - Bow Bridge Communications, LLC.