The 25th Biennale of Sydney, titled "Rememory" and curated by Hoor Al Qasimi, features 143 works by 83 artists and collectives from 37 countries across five venues. The exhibition explores marginalized, fragmented, and repressed histories, drawing on Toni Morrison's concept of 'rememory' as a space between remembering and forgetting. Key works include Tuan Andrew Nguyen's film on Vietnam War trauma, Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme's immersive installation on Palestinian displacement, Khalid Albaih's photographs of Sudan, and Massinissa Selmani's drawings on Algerian socialist building projects.
The biennale arrives amid intense scrutiny of cultural festivals in Australia, with Al Qasimi facing calls to step down over her pro-Palestinian views. This political context supercharges the exhibition's potency, as it focuses on diasporic and First Nations communities, using art to reclaim untold and erased histories. The event matters because it demonstrates how contemporary art can address urgent social and political issues, while also highlighting the challenges faced by cultural institutions navigating polarized public discourse.