The 22nd Videobrasil Biennial, one of the most important events dedicated to the artistic production of the Global South, will take place from 18 October 2023 to 25 February 2024 at Sesc 24 de Maio, in São Paulo, Brazil. The Biennial was postponed for almost two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This edition is in celebration of the 40th anniversary of Videobrasil, an association that started as a video festival and expanded to encompass a broad range of artistic languages.
The title of the Biennial, "Memory is an Editing Station", is a phrase taken from a poem by Waly Salomão (1943–2003), a Brazilian poet and artist who collaborated with many musicians and filmmakers. The curators of the Biennial, Raphael Fonseca, from Brazil, and Renée Akitelek Mboya, from Kenya, propose to explore the relations between memory, history and image editing in the contemporary world. They ask: "What are the ethical boundaries of a cut? Who holds the power to do so? How to forge the memory of what we didn't see or feel in our bodies? What are the limits of memory?"
The Biennial will feature works by artists and collectives from different countries and regions that address collective memories, acts of remembrance and forgetfulness that build historical and social narratives. The works will also reflect on the importance of video as an artistic medium in the last four decades, and how the possibilities for image editing have transformed with the development of new technologies and devices. Participating artists include Adrian Paci, Andrés Denegri, Doplgenger (Isidora Ilić + Boško Prostran), Cercle d'Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise and others.
The Biennial will also include a public program of events with talks, workshops, screenings and performances. A special exhibition curated by Alessandra Bergamaschi and Eduardo de Jesus focuses on the 40 years of Videobrasil and offers an immersion in its historical collection.