Biennial
The 16th Lyon Biennale: manifesto of fragility
Moments like these, where the show drilled down on its complex resistance to heteronormativity (and thus paternalism), heightened the breakdown at Usines Fagor, with its abundance of large-scale installations that, while meaningful—as with Dana Awartani’s Standing by the Ruins of Aleppo (2021), a clay brick reproduction of the courtyard floor in Aleppo’s Grand Mosque—hinted at a curatorial anxiety to fill the site’s cavernous spaces.
Postnational Hybridity and Our Uncertain Future
Singapore Biennale: Natasha
Simone Leigh: Sovereignty
“The work is a gateway, one that bridges extracted projections of African aesthetic realities by refocusing upon the origins of Black exterior expression. Those spaces—just like bodies—hold stories, memories, and dreams. The transformation of this pavilion foreshadowed how this experience would find me in a house of discourses. But this time, there could be a more nuanced conversation about the interiority of Black female consciousness.”