Biennale of Sydney

The 2002 Biennale of Sydney titled (The World May Be Fantastic) investigated 'artists and practices using fictions, narratives, invented methodologies, hypotheses, subjective belief systems, modellings, fakes and experiments as a means to make works'.

Writing in Art in America in October, 2002, Michael Duncan said of the exhibition that it "gave free rein to complex, often offbeat works predicated on alternate realities."

Artists included: Mike Nelson, Chris Burden, Susan Hiller, Vito Acconci, Eleanor Antin, Henry Darger, Janet Cardiff and Rodney Graham.

The festival also featured three two-day symposia, over 50 talks, education programs and an 'Art Walk' along the harbour foreshore between principal exhibition venues.

The 16th Biennale of Sydney, Revolutions – Forms That Turn, took place from 18 June – 7 September 2008 with leading international curator and writer Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev as artistic director.

Cockatoo Island, a former prison and shipyard, was used as a major new venue and won the Biennale a Sydney Music, Arts and Culture (SMAC) Award.

In the closing week of the exhibition, Carriageworks and the Biennale of Sydney presented the Australian premieres of En Atendant and Cesena, two performances by Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s dance ensemble Rosas.

On 19 February 2014, 28 artists participating in the 19th Biennale of Sydney published an open letter to the Board of Directors about their concerns with the sponsorship arrangement with 'Transfield'.

"[11] The group of artists who originally signed this open letter were — Gabrielle de Vietri, Bianca Hester, Charlie Sofo, Nathan Gray, Deborah Kelly, Matt Hinkley, Benjamin Armstrong, Libia Castro, Ólafur Ólafsson, Sasha Huber, Sonia Leber, David Chesworth, Daniel McKewen, Angelica Mesiti, Ahmet Öğüt, Meriç Algün Ringborg, Joseph Griffiths, Sol Archer, Tamas Kaszas, Krisztina Erdei, Nathan Coley, Corin Sworn, Ross Manning, Martin Boyce, Callum Morton, Emily Roysdon, Søren Thilo Funder, Mikhail Karikis.

[12] On 26 February 2014, five artists (Libia Castro, Ólafur Ólafsson, Charlie Sofo, Gabrielle de Vietri & Ahmet Öğüt) withdrew their participation in the Biennale of Sydney in protest.

In March, the Board of The Biennale of Sydney announced that it would cut ties with Transfield, following the growing criticism from artists and refugee activists.

[15] It included soft sculpture works by the Yarrenyty Arltere Artists of Alice Springs and burial baskets woven by Yvonne Koolmatrie.

[18] The programme was centered around seven themes: Dhaagun (‘earth’: sovereignty and working together); Bagaray-Bang (‘healing’); Yirawy-Dhuray (‘yam-connection’: food); Gurray (‘transformation’); Muriguwal Giiland (‘different stories’); Ngawal-Guyungan (‘powerful ideas’: the power of objects); and Bila (‘river’: environment), and it featured works by 101 artists and collectives, from 36 countries including for the first time Nepal, Georgia, Afghanistan, Sudan and Ecuador.

The 24th Biennale of Sydney, titled Ten Thousand Suns, will be presented under the artistic direction of Cosmin Costinaș and Inti Guerrero.