So far, over 15,000 visitors have explored the three exhibition venues of the Art Encounters Biennial 2025 in Timișoara – the Garrison Command, Art Encounters Foundation and FABER – through events such as performative readings, guided tours with artists, curators, and cultural mediators, workshops for children and teenagers, book launches, DJ sets featuring local artists, and a school-oriented program titled My Art Encounters.
Each of these venues, with their unique histories – from military or industrial use to contemporary cultural platforms – offers a distinct yet coherent perspective on the curatorial themes, creating resonances across time, identity, and space. Titled Bounding Histories. Whispering Tales. , this year’s biennial, curated by Ana Janevski and Tevž Logar, brings together artists from multiple generations and geographies, with special attention to the young art scene and emerging practices from Romania and Moldova.
From the participatory journey of Kapwani Kiwanga’s installation Positive.Negative, to portraits of Vojvodina’s ethnic communities in Karpo Godina’s film Healthy People for Fun, or the 3-meter satellite dish inscribed with “God, make me the most famous so I can get out of here” – a piece by Selma Selman displayed at FABER – the public is invited into a bold conversation about boundaries, silences, and echoes: ways in which we understand the past and allow it to return, reinterpreted, in the present.
What’s next: 3 more weeks of events at Art Encounters
- Saturday, June 28, at 12:00 PM, locals are invited by the ŠKART group to a participatory workshop held on the Bega River, aboard a vaporetto.
- That same day marks the finissage of the retrospective exhibition Ștefan Bertalan – In Tune with the World, curated by Bernard Blistène, with a guided tour – the final opportunity to see this ambitious project in Timișoara before it travels.
- Also on Saturday, a special issue of Igloo magazine (no. 226) will be launched at the Garrison Command, focusing on the role of spaces in constructing the Biennial.
In the final weeks, the focus shifts to performance art.
- Moriah Evans brings Be My Muse to the Garrison Command on July 11 and 12 – a delicate performance centered on presence and the intimacy of performative space.
- Also on July 12, Mila Panić presents “okes, a stand-up comedy performance exploring the subversive power of humor in times of crisis.
- That day will also feature Biennial Talks, a discussion with the curators moderated by Diana Marincu.
On Sunday, July 13, the final guided tours of the three exhibitions will take place, and the Biennial will conclude with a performance by artist Christine Cizmaș, the epilogue Between Walls and Words, at the Garrison Command.
Another central aspect of this year’s edition is the art education and mediation component. The My Art Encounters program continues with workshops for children, guided tours, artist walks, as well as themed meetings, performative readings, and discussion sessions under the Biennial Talks and Cool Art Debates banners – building bridges between artists, audiences, and the local context.
Finally, every Saturday evening, Art Encounters, together with main partner Ploom, organizes outdoor parties in the garden of the Garrison Command, featuring the local music scene. These informal events not only close the exhibition day but also serve as spaces for meeting and socialising.
In a time when histories are often rewritten in haste or carelessness, this Biennial proposes a different rhythm – one of listening and fertile contradictions.
The Art Encounters Biennial 2025 – Bounding Histories. Whispering Tales. exhibitions can be visited from Wednesday to Sunday, between 12:00–8:00 PM, until July 13.
The Art Encounters Biennial 2025 is a project funded by the City of Timișoara through the Project Center, co-financed by the Ministry of Culture’s priority program, the National Cultural Fund Administration (AFCN), the French Institute in Timișoara and the German Cultural Center in Timișoara.
Supported by main partner Ploom, strategic partners Banca Transilvania, and exhibition partners Catena.
Supporters: ISHO, Bosch, Mewi, Sanmarco, Saint-Gobain.
Institutional partners: Timiș County Directorate for Culture, Beta – Timișoara Architecture Biennial, FABER, La Două Bufnițe Bookstore, National Art Museum of Moldova, Lutnița Gallery, STPT, Jecza Gallery, ArtCollect Association.
Main media partner: Revista ARTA. Media partners: Radio România Cultural, RFI România, Igloo, The Institute, Contemporary LYNX, Zeppelin, Empower Artists.
Press release from Art Encounters Foundation
Image: Larissa Sansour. Archaeology in Absentia. 2016/2017. Installation view at Art Encounters Biennial, 2025
