Major gallery misses out as Sydney’s biggest arts festival heads west

The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia has been passed over as a main exhibition venue for next year’s edition of Australia’s largest arts festival amid a fresh push by the Biennale of Sydney to reach new audiences in Sydney’s west.

Instead of the MCA – an exhibition venue since 1998 – the 25th Biennale of Sydney will present at Penrith Regional Gallery for the first time next year.

Artists Marian Abboud and Dennis Golding with Biennale of Sydney guest artistic director, Hoor Al Qasimi. Credit: Steven Siewert

“Rememory” will be the overarching theme of the show, a term coined by American writer Toni Morrison, in her Pulitzer Prize winning novel Beloved, to describe a powerful form of memory invoked by revisiting historical moments.

Five exhibition locations have been announced including the Art Gallery of NSW, Campbelltown Arts Centre, and University of Sydney’s Chau Chak Wing Museum.

Back for an encore is the restored iconic White Bay Power Station, which debuted as the city’s newest large-scale arts venue in 2024.

Less than a year out its opening, the Biennale’s guest artistic director, Hoor Al Qasimi, has named the first 37 participating artists, with more to be revealed in October.

The change in evenues came down to curatorial priorities, she said with Western Sydney her focus. “The MCA is a great space, but it’s not location wise. It’s not something that fits into what I want to do. I’m always interested in people who maybe don’t realise that the Biennale is free, and it’s for them.”

She added MCA would be delivering the Biennale’s public programs outside the main exhibitions.

The heritage-listed White Bay Power Station.Credit: Chris Bennett

“I respect the work of [MCA director] Suzanne Cotter and [chair] Lorraine Tarabay,” she said. “For me, the work I’m really trying to do is a lot of community engagement and I want to be in places where I can reach new audiences.”

The Biennale’s theme was inspired by Al Qasimi’s father’s work as a historian. He is Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi the ruler of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates and founder of the Sharjah Biennial, through which Al Qasimi established her international reputation as a curator.

“Rather than focusing on linear storytelling, I hope to highlight how we can become active participants in retelling our collective stories by revisiting and reinterpreting past events,” Al Qasimi said.

“I really wanted to have a title that could connect differently with people. The idea could be the rememory of a certain location or place, the rememory of certain moments in an individual’s life, or certain moments that have happened like computer culture. The title is wide enough to encompass a lot of stories without limiting it to one voice.”

The biennale is being planned at a febrile time in the arts world, amid turmoil in the Middle East and in the aftermath of a controversial decision to cancel artist Khaled Sabsabi from the Venice Biennale. Sabsabi is a Biennale of Sydney board member.

Al Qasimi said the work by Biennale artists would not directly touch on the war in Gaza, unless tangentially in artists’ explorations of colonisation and occupation.

The biennial would not focus on “one moment” but “what is the right project for the right space and for the right place, for example White Bay”. “I’m really trying to make sure that the building is part of the exhibition rather than just an exhibition space,” she said.

Packing Room Prize winner Abdul Abdullah, Yaritji Young, Marian Abboud, Dennis Golding, and Warraba Weatherall will be among the Australian artists to exhibit alongside international artists including the Gaza-born, Paris-based Palestinian multidisciplinary artist, Taysir Batniji.

“I’m really excited about Deirdre O’Mahony, an Irish artist who has worked a lot around agriculture and food sustainability,” Al Qasimi said.

“I’ve invited Merilyn Fairskye and Michiel Dolk, they were the same artists who painted the eight murals on the railway pylons [at Woolloomooloo reserve] to come together to paint a new piece.”

Create NSW has committed $1.6 million to support the 25th Biennale. Some 771,000 people attended the 2024 edition, Ten Thousand Suns, in a record-breaking run over three months and six sites, including White Bay.

Last month the Biennale announced the new funding raising initiative, ArtSeen, directed at young art lovers. Donations of $500 will enable supporters to gain exclusive access to a year-round program of artist-led events, performances, and discussions in the year before the festival.

Cotter, said the MCA was “a longstanding partner and supporter of the Biennale of Sydney, and we are delighted to be program partner for the 25th edition in 2026”.

“Hoor Al Qasimi is a globally renowned curator, and we are excited to see her Biennale for Sydney as artistic director.”

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