Busan Biennale 2026 to be led by Amal Khalaf, Evelyn Simons

The upcoming event will delve into the possibilities of collective healing within the global context

Amal Khalaf will co-curate Busan Biennale 2026. (Christa Holka)

Curators Amal Khalaf and Evelyn Simons will collaborate to lead the Busan Biennale 2026 — the second-largest art biennale in South Korea — to be held from September to November next year.

Khalaf has expanded her curatorial experiences globally, most recently serving as co-curator of the 16th Sharjah Biennale that concluded in June and directing the Bahrain Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2019 as a co-curator. The London-based curator is preparing to open “Ghost 2568: Wish We Were Here,” a video art festival held in Bangkok in October, according to the Busan Biennale Organizing Committee.

A curatorial open call for the 13th Busan Biennale was launched in May with the direction of "an art platform where the local and global intersect." It attracted about 70 individuals and collectives from Korea and abroad, the committee said Monday.

Evelyn Simons will co-curate Busan Biennale 2026. (Sander Houthuys)

Simons is an independent curator based in Brussels and the curator of the ongoing exhibition “These Branching Moments” at the Fotomuseum Antwerp through September. From 2019 to 2023, she led the visual arts and performance programming at Horst Arts & Music, an electronic music and arts festival in Belgium.

“The proposal titled 'Dissident Chorus’ gained strong support from the jury for its artistic vision for addressing the five topics of memory, empathy, care, resistance and solidarity in pursuit of global collective healing,” said Lee Joon, executive director of the committee, in a statement.

The 12th edition of Busan Biennale was held in 2024, curated by artistic directors Vera Mey and Philippe Pirotte, with the theme of “Seeing in the Dark.”