Curator Jochen Volz talks about what sparked the design and content of the 32^nd São Paulo Biennial exhibition titled “Live Uncertainty.”

Ideas that have been dominating our understanding of the world and our role in it are not as solid as we thought they were…If you think about uncertainty, you need to think about everything you took for granted.

Importantly, the biennial pavilion sits at the heart of the city’s hugely popular Ibirapuera Park. A team of architects led by Oscar Niemeyer and Hélio Uchôa designed the park, the pavilion and adjacent cultural spaces to commemorate São Paulo’s 400^th anniversary in 1954. These days, up to 200,000 people a day gather here to immerse themselves in nature and culture. The international contemporary art exhibition—free and open to the public—welcomes a huge number of visitors, many for their first encounter with fine art.

With curators Júlia Rebouças, Gabi Ngcobo, Lars Bang Larsen and Sofía Olascoaga, Volz designed the layout of the biennial to resonate with the park’s spatial dynamic; many of the installations in the exhibition are living environments. Allowing political protests within the pavilion, taking performances and installations out into the surrounding park and the city, and involving local communities in creating projects, the biennial demonstrates the vital role of creativity in a world where the future of free expression, human rights and the environment seems uncertain.

Related Episodes: 33rd São Paulo Biennial Pays Attention to Art, Donna Kukama on Unfinished Stories, Anawana Haloba on Vanishing Cultures, William Pope.L on Art and Endurance, Live from São Paulo Biennial 07Sep16, Live from São Paulo Biennial 06Sep16

Related Links: Jochen Volz, 32nd São Paula Biennial, “Live Uncertainty,” Ibirapuera Park, Oscar Niemeyer, Júlia Rebouças, Gabi Ngcobo, Lars Bang Larsen, Sofía Olascoaga