IBA Stage: 15th Shanghai Biennale “Does the flower hear the bee?”

Allora & Calzadilla, Penumbra and Phantom Forest at the 15th Shanghai Biennale, Does the flower hear the bee?, 2025, Power Station of Art. ©Allora & Calzadilla. Courtesy of the artist, Lisson Gallery, Galerie Chantal Crousel, and Kurimanzutto. Image courtesy of Power Station of Art.

IBA Stage: 15th Shanghai Biennale “Does the flower hear the bee?”
April 22, 2026 – 11:00 am (EDT GMT-4)
Online

We are pleased to announce the next edition of IBA Stage, dedicated to the 15th Shanghai Biennale, Does the flower hear the bee?, with invited guests Kitty Scott (Chief Curator) and Daisy Desrosiers (Co-curator).

On view from 8 November 2025 to 31 March 2026 at the Power Station of Art, the 15th Shanghai Biennale brought together more than 250 works by 67 artists and collectives from around the world, including over 30 newly commissioned projects.

Curated by Kitty Scott, with Daisy Desrosiers and Xue Tan as co-curators, the exhibition unfolds across the museum and extends into the city through an expanded program of public initiatives and City Projects.

Taking its title from the poetic question Does the flower hear the bee?, the Biennale explores how different forms of intelligence, human and nonhuman, intersect, resonate, and co-exist. Drawing on the idea that a flower may “hear” the vibration of wings, the exhibition proposes art as a space for investigating new modes of perception, communication, and community within what the curators describe as the “more-than-human world.”

Developed in dialogue with artists, scientists, writers, and thinkers across disciplines, the Biennale positions attentiveness, listening, and embodied experience as key tools for navigating a moment marked by ecological crisis, global uncertainty, and shifting forms of knowledge. Rather than offering fixed answers, it opens space for new sensorial registers and emergent ways of relating to the world.

The exhibition design, conceived as a “garden-like landscape,” invites visitors to move through the Power Station of Art in a non-linear way, encountering works across scales and temporalities, and engaging with art as a space of attunement and encounter.

Through IBA Stage, we invite audiences to hear directly from the individuals shaping this ambitious project and to engage with its curatorial vision and programmatic framework.

As with all IBA Stage events, the conversation will conclude with an open Q&A session, offering participants the opportunity to join the discussion.

We look forward to welcoming you on April 22 at 11:00 am (EDT GMT-4), please make sure to register through this link.