Alison Nguyen will be featured in the Busan Biennale 2026, Dissident Chorus, from 29 August to 1 November 2026.
Busan Biennale 2026, Dissident Chorus
Exhibition Period: 29 August - 1 November 2026.
Venue: Busan Museum of Contemporary Art, Space OneZ, Former Busan Nam High School
The 2026 Busan Biennale will open under the title “Dissident Chorus” on Aug. 29, with 44 artists and teams from 23 countries spread across three venues on two of the city’s islands.
The Busan Biennale this year is conceived as a “polyphonic score” in three movements, according to the organizers. The first will call the Busan Museum of Contemporary Art on Eulsuk Island its home, with the museum to display works on ecology, care and regeneration, anchored to the island’s status as a protected bird habitat.
Space One-Z, a former ship-equipment warehouse on Yeongdo Island’s waterfront, will host the second movement focusing on labor, the sea and diasporic memory.
The third movement will unfold inside the former Busan Nam High School — vacant since early this year — which the curators are treating as a rehearsal space for questions about pedagogy and collective knowledge.
“This biennale, for us, is a score that unfolds over three movements,” explained Amal Khalaf, the co-director of this year’s biennale, during a press conference for the event at the Seoul Press Center in Jung District, central Seoul, on Wednesday. “Busan, as a city, for anybody who has spent time there, feels both very haunted and very alive.”
The roster for the Busan Biennale leans heavily toward artists working in sound, performance, choreography and club culture — a deliberate departure from the object-centered viewing experience of past editions.
Image courtesy of the Busan Biennale.
Learn more –
Busan Biennale 2026, Dissident Chorus | Korea JoongAng Daily
