Liverpool Biennial Announces Artist List and ‘Age of Magical Thinking’ Theme

The 2027 edition of the Liverpool Biennial, scheduled to open June 5 and continue through September 19, will feature 25 artists and collectives assembled in mind of a newly designated theme: “The Age of Magical Thinking.”

“The title draws on psychologist Jean Piaget’s identification of a particular period in childhood development when the lines between reality and make-believe are blurred,” reads a press release. “This is an age when the imagination is powerful; tomorrow is charged with potential and when magical thinking can help to create new, alternative worlds.”

Curated by Aimee Harrison and Lucía Sanromán, the exhibition across the city in North West England will include a public art project created by local young people and artist Harold Offeh for Williamson Square as well as new commissioned works by Francis Alÿs, Tania Candiani, and Laakkuluk Williamson. Venues for the show include the Bluecoat, FACT Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery, Open Eye Gallery, Victoria Gallery & Museum, Liverpool Cathedral, and the Exhibition Research Laboratory at Liverpool John Moores University.

About the theme, Sanromán, the cocurator, said, “As someone deeply committed to socially engaged and participatory forms of art, working on a Biennial informed by the perspectives and experiences of children and young people has given Aimee and I a lens to view and face the complexity of this particularly uncertain political moment, globally.”

Harrison added, “We have an opportunity to learn alongside children about living in a world that is both hard and full of possibility.”

Below, see the complete list of artists and collectives to be included in the next Liverpool Biennial.

Ad Minoliti (Argentina)
Amalia Pica (Argentina/UK)
Anya Paintsil (Wales)
Charmaine Poh (Singapore/Germany)
Dor Guez (Jerusalem/Athens)
EBB.Global (France)
Elias Nafaa (Lebanon/Canada)
Francis Alÿs (Belgium/Mexico)
Harold Offeh (Ghana/UK)
Hiroko Kubo (Japan)
Immy Mali (Uganda)
Iván Argote (Colombia/France)
the vacuum cleaner (UK)
Laakkuluk Williamson (Greenlandic Inuk/Canada)
Wen Cheng Lee (Taiwan)
Marilyn Boror Bor (Guatemala)
Petrit Halilaj (Kosovo/Germany)
Rineke Dijkstra (The Netherlands)
Robert Gabris (Slovakia/Austria)
Ronak & Roza Moshtaghi (Iran/Germany/Norway)
Ruth Ewan (Scotland)
Tania Candiani (Mexico)
Yarema Malashchuk and Roman Khimei (Ukraine)
Zohra Opoku (Germany/Ghana)