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
- Timoteus Anggawan Kusno
- Lee Bul
- Yin-Ju Chen & Li-Chun Lin (Marina)
- Sissel Tolaas
- Kira Nova
- Shannon Te Ao
- Pacita Abad
- nasa4nasa
- Sahej Rahal
- Candice Lin
- Jeong Kwan
- Seyni Camara
- Angelo Plessas
- Sangdon Kim
- Gerard Fortuné
- Katarina Barruk
- Arpita Singh
- Moon Kyungwon
- Trajal Harrell
- Minouk Lim
- Rajni Perera
- Angela Melitopoulos
- Kader Attia
- Sangho Lee
- Adrián Villar Rojas
- Cian Dayrit
- Fernando Palma Rodríguez
- Kwak Duck-Jun
- Bae Young-hwan
- Hyuntaek Cho
- Cecilia Vicuña
- Quishile Charan & Esha Pillay (aka The Bad Fiji Gyals)
- Ouattara Watts
- Korakrit Arunanondchai
- Pedro Neves Marques
- Jacolby Satterwhite
- Emo de Medeiros
- Jumaadi
- MOON & JEON
- Gala Porras-Kim
- Sylbee Kim
- Femke Herregraven
- Farid Belkahia
- Tcheu Siong
- Lynn Hershman Leeson
- ∞OS(Dmitry Paranyushkin and Koo Des)
- Ana Prvački
- Min Joung-Ki
- Chiharu Shiota
- Vivian Lynn
- Apichatpong Weerasethakul
- John Gerrard
- Outi Pieski
- Gap-Chul Lee
- Kim Sung Hwan
- Vaginal Davis
- Shen Xin
- Ali Cherri
- Tuguldur Yondonjamts
- Cecilia Bengolea
- Alexandra Sukhareva
- Ana María Millán
- Karrabing Film Collective
- Siyabonga Mthembu
- Judy Radul
- Liliane Lijn
- Tishan Hsu
- Cecilia Bengolea
- Chrysanne Stathacos
- Gözde Ilkin
- Theo Eshetu
- Korakrit Arunanondchai
- Zofia Rydet
- Ad Minoliti
- Sonia Gomes
- Ho Tzu Nyen
- People’s Archive of Rural India – PARI
- Abu Bakarr Mansaray
- Mike Nelson
- Kang Seung Lee
- Tarek Atoui
- Patricia Domínguez