Kyiv Biennial

Kyiv Biennial is an international forum for art, knowledge and politics that integrates exhibitions and discussion platforms. It adopts an interdisciplinary perspective at the intersection of science, politics and art in order to reflect on the crucial issues of the contemporary world. Kyiv Biennial is organized by the Visual Culture Research Center.

The first edition of Kyiv Biennial in 2015, The School of Kyiv, included six “schools” – conceptual platforms promoting the dialogue between Ukrainian and international artists, intellectuals, and the public. In the spring of 2016, The School of Kyiv expanded to Europe, and its departments were opened in various cultural capitals. The next edition, The Kyiv International – Kyiv Biennial 2017, explored the emancipatory potential of the idea of the political International. The second part of this event called The Kyiv International – ’68 NOW happened in May 2018, commemorating the 50th anniversary of May 1968. The third edition of Kyiv Biennial in 2019, Black Cloud, focused on the political and cultural role of modern information technologies as well as social transformations that have happened in Eastern Europe over the past three decades.

Kyiv Biennial works with the architectural context of the city by involving unique buildings of the Soviet modernism. Over the years, Kyiv Biennial’s exhibitions and public events have been held in such locations as the House of Clothes, the “UFO” building (Ukrainian Institute of Scientific and Technical Information), Zhytnii Market, KPI Library, the House of Cinema and others.

In 2019, Kyiv Biennial became part of the newly established East Europe Biennial Alliance, which also includes Biennale Matter of Art in Prague, Biennale Warszawa and OFF-Biennale Budapest.