The 2026 Busan Biennale, organized by the Busan Metropolitan City and the Busan Biennale Organizing Committee, will open on August 29 and run for 65 days through November 1.
 
Co-directed by artistic directors Evelyn Simons and Amal Khalaf, this edition is tentatively titled 《Dissident Chorus》 and will take place at the Busan Museum of Contemporary Art as well as various unused spaces across the city.
 
The exhibition is conceived as a choir singing together, where distinct voices and sounds overlap and accumulate to form a collective resonance. This process serves as the structural framework of the exhibition, inviting audiences to participate in a shared, collective performance.

This exhibition begins from the contemporary condition of an era marked by deepening fractures in language. As violence surrounding language intensifies and speech increasingly operates as a tool that reinforces confrontation and division, song and sound are proposed as mediums capable of holding multiple layers of emotion and rhythm simultaneously.
 
The city of Busan functions as a site where such polyphonic resonance has long accumulated. In this coastal city, shaped by overlapping histories of arrival, movement, and survival, the works resonate within the historical vibrations of both city and sea, connecting collective memory with present sensory experience. 《Dissident Chorus》 takes the time and sound of this city as its medium, exploring the possibility of contemporary resonance through the form of the chorus.

Meanwhile, Amal Khalaf, one of the co-artistic directors of the 2026 Busan Biennale, was recently ranked 43rd in the 2025 Power 100, published by the influential UK-based contemporary art magazine ArtReview, affirming her significant impact on the international art world.
 
The Organizing Committee anticipates that the convergence of curatorial practices developed on the global stage and the distinct locality of Busan will propose new ways for contemporary art to engage with the city. Further details, including participating artists and exhibition-related programs, will be announced in stages.

References

• 부산비엔날레조직위원회 보도자료 (Busan Biennale Organizing Committee Press Release)