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Starting an art biennale in a small country with virtually no galleries and no art schools — not even a formal shop to frame paintings and photographs — could have seemed impossible, the stuff only of dreams.
But that’s exactly what a group of five artists from Guinea-Bissau, a nation of just over two million people in West Africa, decided to do. They could no longer sit “with their arms crossed and do nothing,” about what they saw as a dire gap in their country’s art infrastructure, said Nu Barreto, the visual and plastic arts curator of the country’s first biennale, MoAC Biss.
The biennale is designed in part to create more opportunities for local artists, who have few current ways to display their work: at an outdoor artisanal market, or at internationally funded venues such as the Centro Cultural Franco-Bissau-Guineense. MoAC Biss, which began May 1 and runs through May 31 in Bissau, the capital city, features some 150 artists, from 17 countries.
The event was designed to cover more disciplines than just visual arts. “We know what the challenges are for the writers, painters, artists and theaters and dancers, and that’s why we said, OK we are starting with five,” Barreto said. The biennale’s vibrant opening night concluded with a concert by the Bissau-Guinean band Furkuntunda, who had not played live for 18 years. Welket Bungué, the performing arts and moving images curator, called the performance “cathartic.”
The group was brought together by Karyna Gomes, the music coordinator, who joined the group onstage to sing to a theater so packed that people were seating in the aisles. That the biennale was even opening was something of a feat, because it had lost more than half of its funding three weeks earlier when government upheavals in Portugal and Brazil — countries that had pledged support — caused funding to dry up. Then a nationwide blackout in Spain and Portugal delayed the arrival of one of the theater troupes.
The irony of political instability and power outages — problems that coup-prone Guinea-Bissau is usually better known for than its European counterparts — did not escape the organizers. “It’s not just us who have challenges,” said Antonio Spencer Embaló, the conferences and public policies curator. “This type of thinking is important for people here to understand as well — that everyone has difficulties.”
In the biennale’s main visual arts space, two semi-expressionist tableaus by the Guadeloupean artist Jean-Marc Hunt are some of the first art to greet visitors. They are part of Hunt’s Jardin Créole series, a celebration of gardens where traditions are transmitted, daily needs are met, and overconsumption is discouraged; they serve as a stark contrast to the former use of the space as a timber mill factory.
Next to Hunt’s work is “Big Kaombo,” by the Angolan artist Evan Claver: an installation created with bright yellow plastic jerrycans and painted with loudly shining black oil paint. One side depicts a group of young people waiting for visa applications at embassies; the other side shows the Statue of Liberty.
“In Angola, the young people are trying to emigrate a lot. And in the capital, outside the embassies are full of young people trying to get visas to leave the country and searching for new opportunities,” Claver said, adding that his playful work aims to poke fun at serious issues and encourage the youth to reflect on their choices. “I think emigration is not the answer. America has a lot of issues, too.”
Both Claver and Hunt were in Guinea-Bissau for the first time. “Biennales nowadays are major meeting points,” said César Schofield Cardoso, an artist from Cape Verde who is showing “Blue Womb,” a collection of cyanotypes, photographs, sound and video. “They play a big role in cultural exchange, and Guinea-Bissau is such a rich country in terms of culture and creativity, but it’s not well known.”
Though its population is small, Guinea-Bissau has at least 33 ethnic groups, each with its own dances, its own ways of singing, its own ways to mourn, Embaló said. It is also one of the least developed countries in the world, with a life expectancy of just 64, according to the World Bank, and the curators believe that art can be a tool for development.
Culture and art “feed our soul,” Embaló said. “It is true that people have to work very hard to get things that feed their body, but what feeds our soul is fundamental for us all to stand tall.” He said that curators want the biennale to be a living, breathing presence in the city even when the event is over. Construction is underway at the factory compound for areas that will serve as artists’ studios for residencies.
The spaces will also be available to local designers, like the Bissau-Guinean designer and painter Thyra Correia, who is showing furniture and lighting design at the biennale. The pieces are from her collection called Tchon, a Guinea-Bissau Creole word that means land, but equally means home in the Bissau-Guinean context. Correia works with local materials and local artisans to create her designs.
Craft workers “are everywhere” in Guinea-Bissau, she said. “It is possible to make stuff in the most humble and pure way. I think this work has the responsibility to show people that we can have beautiful things, contemporary things, being produced here.”
The organizers intentionally scheduled MoAC Biss in an off year from the Dakar Biennale, in Senegal. Ousseynou Wade, the longtime director of the Dakar Biennale, attended the Bissau biennale and said the two events confront two different realities.
“They have different relations with the government,” he said. “The Dakar Biennale was an initiative of the government. This in Bissau was an initiative of independent will.” The Guinea-Bissau biennale this year had no government funding from the Guinea-Bissau state. “This is important, not just only for Guinea-Bissau, but it’s important in the geography of arts on the African continent, so that the areas on the continent develop,” Wade added.
Biennales, he noted, can help break language and culture barriers. “We have to knock down these borders, and Africa in all its diversity, can gather regularly in these spaces,” he said.
