13th Biennale(2021)
Exhibition
- Period
- : 2019-09-04 ~ 2019-11-29
- Participating Countries
- : 43
- Artists
- : 69
Minds Rising, Spirits Tuning
The 13th Gwangju Biennale
2019-09-04 ~ 2019-11-29
It has been said that we are experiencing an intelligence
explosion that is broadly understood as the emergence of
superintelligence. And yet, questions abound: where precisely
can organic intelligence be found? To what extent can it be
pursued in the human brain and also in the heart, as the Korean
term, would imply? Let us avow, then, the dissemination of the
“communal mind”—continuously emergent and rooted in
healing technologies, indigenous life-worlds, matriarchal
systems, animism, and anti-systemic kinship.
Minds Rising, Spirits Tuning sets out to examine the spectrum
of the extended mind through artistic and theoretical means.
Directed by Defne Ayas and Natasha Ginwala, the 13th
Gwangju Biennale (1 April–9 May, 2021) will feature a
dynamic program encompassing an exhibition, a performance
program, an online publishing platform and publications, and a
series of public forums bringing together artists, theoretical
scientists, and systems thinkers. The Biennale argues for the
primacy of plurality, positing that points of origin and influence
ought to be accessed not only through the dominant
technological systems and machinic vocabularies traceable to
the West but also relate to heterodox ancestries.
In challenging the structural divisions imposed upon corporeal,
technological, and spiritual intelligence, Minds Rising, Spirits
Tuning will delve into a broad set of cosmologies, activating
planetary life-systems, queer technologies, and modes of
communal survival. By investigating how such diverse practices
transact with multitudinous forms of life, the 13th Gwangju
Biennale will examine how they contend with the future horizon
of cognitive capitalism and planetary imperialisms, as well as
the present dimension of neural networks and other techno-
spiritual emergences that populate our computational
biosphere. We feel convinced—living as we are through a
traumatic interregnum—that the present co-evolution with
electronic intelligence and algorithmic regimes needs to be
addressed from a planetary perspective. How then can we
interpret the incomputable nature of this transition?
In Gwangju, a city that has long been acutely familiar with
resistance building and communal trauma, it is the Biennale’s
intent to bring mind-expanding practices together with
historically conscious propositions. The 40th anniversary of the
May 18 Democratic Uprising and people’s movement in
Gwangju provides an impetus to metabolize journeys through
the threshold between life and death—the middle world of the
undead—to extend analyses of current strategies of solidarity
building and global alliances, and to strive for a deeper
understanding of the intrinsic relationship between healing,
dissent, and renewal.
Artistic Directors

Defne Ayas
Natasha Ginwala
Team
- ASSOCIATE / CURATORS
- Michelangelo Corsaro / Joowon Park / Krisztina Hunya
- RESEARCH AND PROGRAMMING ASSOCIATE
- Özge Ersoy
- FORUM LIAISON
- Riksa Afiaty
- MANAGING EDITOR
- Young-Jun Tak
- CO-EDITOR OF "STRONGER THAN BONE" / EDITORIAL ADVISOR
- Jill Winder
- PRODUCERS
- Charles Gohy / Davide Quadrio
- EXHIBITION ARCHITECTURE
- Diogo Passarinho Studio
- GRAPHIC IDENTITY
- WORKS
- WEBSITE DESIGN / EXHIBITION GRAPHICS
- Studio Remco van Bladel (Remco van Bladel and Kimberley ter Heerdt)
- WEBSITE PROGRAMMING
- Studio RGB
- ENGLISH COPY EDITORS
- Tyler Considine
- Hannah Gregory
- TRANSLATORS
- Helen Cho
- Yes More Translation
- Yu Ji-Won
- Vivian Lynn
- Apichatpong Weerasethakul
- Patricia Domínguez
- Mike Nelson
- Kim Sung Hwan
- Yin-Ju Chen & Li-Chun Lin (Marina)
- Sissel Tolaas
- Kira Nova
- Gap-Chul Lee
- Sahej Rahal
- Candice Lin
- Karrabing Film Collective
- Seyni Camara
- Tuguldur Yondonjamts
- Pacita Abad
- Sangdon Kim
- Tishan Hsu
- Katarina Barruk
- Chrysanne Stathacos
- Siyabonga Mthembu
- Angelo Plessas
- Minouk Lim
- Zofia Rydet
- Ad Minoliti
- Trajal Harrell
- Theo Eshetu
- Abu Bakarr Mansaray
- Cian Dayrit
- Kader Attia
- People’s Archive of Rural India – PARI
- Tarek Atoui
- Hyuntaek Cho
- Cecilia Vicuña
- Fernando Palma Rodríguez
- Kang Seung Lee
- Korakrit Arunanondchai
- Jacolby Satterwhite
- Emo de Medeiros
- Timoteus Anggawan Kusno
- Quishile Charan & Esha Pillay (aka The Bad Fiji Gyals)
- Lee Bul
- Gala Porras-Kim
- Sylbee Kim
- Jeong Kwan
- Farid Belkahia
- Shannon Te Ao
- nasa4nasa
- Gerard Fortuné
- ∞OS(Dmitry Paranyushkin and Koo Des)
- Arpita Singh
- Moon Kyungwon
- Lynn Hershman Leeson
- Rajni Perera
- Angela Melitopoulos
- John Gerrard
- Chiharu Shiota
- Adrián Villar Rojas
- Vaginal Davis
- Shen Xin
- Outi Pieski
- Sangho Lee
- Cecilia Bengolea
- Alexandra Sukhareva
- Ana María Millán
- Kwak Duck-Jun
- Ali Cherri
- Bae Young-hwan
- Judy Radul
- Liliane Lijn
- Jumaadi
- Cecilia Bengolea
- Ouattara Watts
- Pedro Neves Marques
- Gözde Ilkin
- Femke Herregraven
- Korakrit Arunanondchai
- Tcheu Siong
- MOON & JEON
- Ho Tzu Nyen
- Ana Prvački
- Min Joung-Ki
- Sonia Gomes