The areas of art and education are revolutionary by nature. Through them, we change our worldview and create new ways of seeing and acting. Being an artist or teacher requires a constant exercise in creating and discovering new ways forward.

The role of an educational program within a cultural institution is to pose questions about contemporary life and art through contact with artworks. The questions, problems and propositions artists raise yield cross-fertilizations and stimulate actions that sustain our invention of education through art.

All of the Bienal Educational Program’s actions are geared toward the public’s relationship with art. The guided tours, the meetings with public and private schoolteachers and NGO educators, the workshops and courses, both on-site and at distance, the lectures and the seminars, not to mention the poetic actions and urban interventions, all of these trigger processes that connect with people’s everyday practices.

For the Bienal Educational Program, the curatorial line taken in the exhibitions is always a challenge that demands a close dialogue with people and works, dialogue between the team and the public, the creation of different types of approximation with art and relationships between art and everyday life, and all of this with the intention of investigating and discussing the essence of each artist’s work and the urgencies of contemporary life.

The Bienal Educational Program’s movement is toward expanding its territory in order to reach more diverse groups and encompass the public as a whole. If people have something to say, we have to create the space in which they can make their voices ring out. This is another aspect to our work. Our aim is not just to give visitors and students challenging contact with art, but to create a space in which our educators – those who have direct contact with the public – can propose other ways of relating to art.

The Bienal has a track-record in educational actions that were always in synchrony with the time, proposing lines of investigation of vanguard. These projects have accompanied the exhibitions since its 2nd edition, in 1953, but they were only temporary and tied to that particular edition of the Bienal. The Educational Program for the 29th Bienal was given the privilege of extending its activities beyond the exhibition itself to become a permanent section in 2011, with the show In the Name of the Artists – American Contemporary Art from the Astrup Fearnley Collection. This was an achievement that belongs to all the educators who have worked for the institution, fulfilling a role that has had enormous impact on our history. 

Stela Barbieri,
Curator of the Bienal Educational Program

For more information on the Bienal Educational Program, contact:
educativo@bienal.org.br
+55 11 5576 7611