IBA Academy | Biennials and Memory – 2nd Session Remembering
April 14th 2026 – 9:30 pm (CET/GMT+1)
Online (Zoom)
The second session of Biennials and Memory: Expanding on Archival Practices refocuses on archives as sites of knowledge production and re-production by placing our attention to the activation of archives and their use in exhibition making, curatorial and artistic practices. By enlarging the perspective on traditional notions of the archive and the practice of archiving biennials, this session unfolds as a conversation around research projects and exhibitions that have critically engaged with institutional histories and the ways in which they are constructed, mediated, and revisited. Moving beyond the archive as a fixed repository, the panel approaches it as an active, contested, and continuously evolving field of knowledge production.
Focusing on practices that interrogate how biennials remember, narrate, and historicise themselves, the session considers exhibitions, curatorial strategies, and long-term research initiatives that treat the biennial not only as an event but as a site of memory and historical significance.
Bringing together practitioners and researchers who have worked closely with these questions, the panel reflects on how institutional memory is shaped through curatorial decisions, archival methodologies, and modes of display.
Prof. Mi You. Image Credit: Nicolas Wefers.
Mi You is a curator and professor of Art and Economies at the University of Kassel / documenta Institut, where she leads research on the social, economic, and political conditions of art. She’s the author of the book Art in a Multipolar World (Hatje Cantz, 2024). As a curator, she works between ancient and futuristic imaginaries of societies and technologies, and the history, political theory, and philosophy of Eurasia. Her most recent exhibitions include the 13th Shanghai Biennale (2020–21), “Lonely Vectors” at the Singapore Art Museum (2022), “Clouds, Power and Ornament” at the Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile (2023), and “Really? Art and Knowledge in Time of Crisis” at Framer Framed (2024). She serves as chair of the committee on Media Arts and Technology for the transnational NGO Common Action Forum and is a Berggruen Institute Europe fellow.
Dusu Choi. Image credit: personal.
Dusu Choi is an independent curator who recently served as the Head of the Exhibition Department at the Gwangju Biennale Foundation. He oversaw the 14th edition, <soft and weak like water> (2023), featuring 9 national pavilions, and the 15th edition, <PANSORI, a soundscape of the 21st century> (2024), which expanded to 31 national pavilions. Recently, he curated the 30th anniversary exhibition of the Gwangju Biennale Archive, titled <Madang: Where We Become Us>, as a collateral event of the 60th Venice Biennale (2024). He also curated the Gwangju Biennale’s Special Exhibition for the May 18th Democratization Movement, titled <To Where the Flowers Are Blooming> (2022) at Spazio Berlendis in Venice. As the founder and director of the artist-run art fair <Union Art Fair> and the alternative space <space xx> in Seoul, he continues to be a leading figure in the young contemporary art scene in Korea.
