IBA Academy: Biennials and Education – Learning and Unlearning
Following the launch of IBA Academy earlier this year, we are pleased to announce its second module, Biennials and Education – Learning and Unlearning, taking place online across three sessions on October 21, 23 and 29, 2026.
IBA Academy was created as a continuous platform for knowledge exchange within our member’s network and beyond. Structured around focused thematic modules it brings together practicians and academics to reflect on the complexity of biennials and critically observe the model to assure its relevance within the current contemporary art ecosystem and society at large.
Each module creates space to examine a specific aspect of biennial practice, share different experiences and approaches, and identify questions that will lead to further research and longer-term work within the Association and its Research Committee.
For this second module, we turn our attention to education and learning within biennials. Biennials and Education – Learning and Unlearning will explore how biennials can act as spaces for learning, experimentation and collective knowledge production. Across the three sessions, we will consider the role of education and mediation within biennial-making, the relationship between pedagogical and curatorial practices, and the ways artists, educators, institutions and publics can learn from and with one another.
The title Learning and Unlearning also invites us to look beyond education as the transfer of knowledge. How can biennials create spaces where established forms of knowledge can be questioned? What can different communities and situated practices teach institutions? And how might processes of unlearning help us rethink the relationships between biennials and their constituencies?
The module has been developed in collaboration with Gabriela Saenger Silva, an arts educator, researcher and cultural producer based in Liverpool, UK. Her work explores the intersections of contemporary art, education and exhibition-making, with a particular interest in contra-colonial practices and biennials as sites of learning, experimentation and collective knowledge production.
Gabriela holds a PhD in Art and Design from Liverpool John Moores University, where she is affiliated with the Exhibition Research Lab. Her doctoral research examined pedagogical and public programs in biennials, focusing on the Mercosul Biennial in Brazil and Liverpool Biennial in the UK, and how educational practices shape curatorial processes, institutional relationships and public engagement. She is also part of the international Para-Pedagogy research group led by Nora Sternfeld at HFBK Hamburg and The Amazon Basin as Connecting Borderland, an international research project supported by the Getty Foundation.
Session 1 – October 21, 2026 (Wednesday), 5:00 pm (Sharjah/GMT+4)
Gabriela Saenger Silva (Liverpool John Moores University) in conversation with Nora Sternfeld (HFBK Hamburg)
Renato Lopes — Education Team, São Paulo Biennial
Moderation: Axel Wieder (Director, Berlin Biennale)
Register here for the first session
Session 2 – October 23, 2026 (Friday), 3 pm (Sharjah/GMT+4)
Aimee Harrison, Co-Curator 14th Liverpool Biennial
Mario D’Souza, Director of Programs Kochi-Muziris Biennale
Moderation: Gabriela Saenger Silva (Liverpool John Moores University)
Register here for the second session
Session 3 – October 29, 2026 (Thursday), 3 pm (Sharjah/GMT+4)
Yana Klichuk, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow and PhD researcher (Open University of Catalonia)
Lama Altakruri, Adults Learning Programme Manager (Sharjah Art Foundation)
Moderation: Aki Hoashi, Deputy Executive Director (Organising Committee for the Yokohama Triennale)
Register here for the third and final session
Each session will conclude with an open Q&A, inviting participants to actively engage in the conversation.
