GIBCA 2025 Curator Christina Lehnert. Photo Ellika Henrikson. Courtesy GIBCA
IBA Stage: Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art (GIBCA) 2025
November 28, 2025 (Friday)
3:00 pm (Göteborg/GMT+1)
https://www.gibca.se/en/
We are delighted to welcome Christina Lehnert, curator of the 13th edition of the Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art (GIBCA), as one of our invited speakers for the upcoming IBA Stage event on November 28, 2025.
Christina Lehnert has developed a curatorial practice defined by an engagement with the social and political dimensions of contemporary art. Since 2022, she has been serving as Chief Curator at the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden. Prior to this, she was Curator at Portikus in Frankfurt am Main (2018–2022), where she presented solo exhibitions that foregrounded artistic resistance, historical complexity, and structural experimentation.
Her earlier roles include Interim Director of Kunstverein Braunschweig and a curatorial fellowship at the Gebert Foundation for Culture in Switzerland. She is also an active contributor to the acquisitions committee of the Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, continuing to influence institutional collecting strategies with a critical eye on contemporary urgencies.
Among others Lehnert has worked closely with artists whose practices probe the political moment, language, and the materiality of contemporary life. Her exhibitions have featured artists such as:
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Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
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William Pope.L
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Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi
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Jimmy Robert
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Georgia Sagri
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Lydia Ourahmane
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Willem de Rooij
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Alia Farid
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Hajra Waheed
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Thea Djordjadze
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Leo Asemota
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Nástio Mosquito
For the 2025 edition of GIBCA, Lehnert has developed a curatorial approach that purposefully resists singular narratives. Titled a hand that is all our hands combined (inspired by a line from Solmaz Sharif’s poetry), the exhibition takes shape as a polyphonic response to the growing pressures on democracy, freedom of expression, and solidarity across Europe and beyond.
Rather than organizing around a single theme, Lehnert opens space for complexity, dissent, and collective resistance, working with artists who speak to political urgency through diverse and experimental forms. Her vision for GIBCA 2025 underscores her commitment to art as a political force, and the biennial as a space for learning, unlearning, and imagining otherwise.
We invite you to join us on November 28 at 3PM CET as we reflect on how a hand that is all our hands combined finds its place within Göteborg, its communities and the wider biennial world
To have the possibility to hear and discuss with the individuals behind biennials has been a key component of what we believe IBA can offer to our members and the wider public and we value your participation through our live streams. As always IBA Stage events are meant as a moment to hear about a project through its makers and have the opportunity to participate in a Q&A session at the end of the presentation.
