The 16th Kaunas Biennial returns in 2027: exhibition to be curated by Josée Drouin-Brisebois and Nivi Christensen

The 16th Kaunas Biennial, one of Lithuania’s largest and longest-running international contemporary art events, will take place in Kaunas from 17 September to 21 November 2027. The main exhibition will be curated by Josée Drouin-Brisebois (Canada) and Nivi Christensen (Greenland).

“The curatorial duo for the 16th Kaunas Biennial was selected with the aim of bringing together different curatorial experiences and relationships with the city. Josée is returning to Kaunas following the 13th Kaunas Biennial – she knows the city, its cultural scene and its audiences. Nivi, meanwhile, will be visiting Lithuania for the first time. She brings with her experience of Greenland’s cultural scene and a perspective from a region that has not previously been explored in our programme. We found it interesting to bring these two perspectives together and see what kind of dialogue they will create, and how this dialogue might open up new ways of seeing Kaunas and the biennial itself,” says Renata Bartusevičiūtė, Director of the Kaunas Biennial.

The exhibition brings together artists who investigate shared and diverging experiences of place, belonging, and resistance. Through textile, performance, installation, voice, and storytelling, they carry histories of labour, care, and intergenerational connection. The project weaves together questions of Indigenous identity, colonial memory, and considers the interrelationship between communities, nature, and land. 

Solidarity and care here are not passive. They are political acts and a call to action: a deliberate turning toward the voiceless and silenced, including the land, the trees, and those who struggle to be heard, those who came before and those who will come after. In a destabilising world, where long-upheld certainties are unravelling, the exhibition asks how we might build spaces of genuine comfort, care and common understanding. The project will be developed in dialogue – with living artists, with landscapes, with histories that are still unfolding. We challenge the idea that solidarity is something given from a position of power; instead, it emerges from the periphery, from those who know what it means to be present yet often unseen or unnoticed.

“We are interested in solidarity as a practice – a way of listening, acknowledging differences, sharing responsibility and acting together,” say the curators, Drouin-Brisebois and Christensen.

The main exhibition will be accompanied by collateral events, an educational and public programme, performances, artist talks and other events. Attention will be given to engaging different audiences, improving access to contemporary art, and creating opportunities to experience the biennial’s themes through the exhibition, as well as through live encounters, collaborative projects and educational activities.

About the curators

Josée Drouin-Brisebois is Director of National Engagement at the National Gallery of Canada, having previously served as Senior Curator of Contemporary Art. She has contributed to the presentation of the Canada Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Drouin-Brisebois has curated exhibitions in Canada, Italy, Austria and Lithuania.

Nivi Christensen is Director of Nuuk Art Museum in Greenland. She curates exhibitions and advises on art projects in Greenland and abroad, and is a guest lecturer at the University of Greenland, Ilisimatusarfik. In her work, Christensen places particular emphasis on strengthening the local art scene and fostering connections between representatives of Indigenous cultural scenes across the Arctic region.

The list of participating artists and the full programme will be announced in the near future.

The project is funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture.