SÃO PAULO — At the pre-opening of the 36th São Paulo Biennial on September 5, a spiritual procession filled the austere Cecilio Matarazzo Pavilion in Parque Ibirapuera with rousing drums and smoke. With the festivities of poetry readings and live performances continuing over opening weekend, it was almost enough to forget that not far off, on Avenida Paulista, another large crowd was gathering to cheer on Brazil’s ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, whose ultra-right-wing populism is embraced by millions despite strong evidence that he undermined Brazil’s democratic elections.The biennial itself was shadowed by the bolsonarista rally, despite featuring few politically incisive works. As its chief curator, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, said at the press conference, this year’s edition sought to address “the acceleration of dehumanization worldwide, from Gaza to Goma, from Kashmir to Khartoum,” fueled by “the belief that to make peace we must make war,” through quieter means than direct protest. Indeed, its title is inspired by a line in Conceição Evaristo’s poem “Da calma e do silêncio” (Of calm and silence, 1990): “there are submerged worlds that only the silence of poetry penetrates.” Taking this cue, the biennial features a number of outstanding works that illustrate the ways in which the senses (attentive listening, in particular) can deepen a sense of fraternity and mutual care. This attentiveness to undersung currents also extends to its forefronting of African and Black Brazilian artists and employs an elliptical exhibition model inspired by estuaries, where rivers feed into oceans. Even as it privileges quiet and reflective engagement, however, the biennial cannot fully contain the frictions and instabilities that surround and infuse it.Raven Chacon, Iggor Cavalera & Laima Leyton, in collaboration with members of the Etenhiritipa Xavante community, “Voiceless Mass”(2021)The spare yet piercing vocal performance, “Nothing Will Remain Other Than the Thorn Lodged in the Throat of this World” (2025) by Palestinian artist Noor Abed and Lebanese artist Haig Aivazian, performed in the auditorium, set the expectation of careful listening. Reproducing everything from a bullet’s whizz to a cat’s purring — an animal method to heal pain, the artists said — the piece sees the pair singing, clapping, and syncopating back and forth to recreate a sonic landscape of war, experienced from the civilian perspective. At one point, they say to each other, “Are you okay?” “I’m okay, are you okay?” “But are you really okay?” This stuttered refrain of solidarity is whittled down to a few solicitous notes, yet effectively conveys the sense that truly listening means synchronizing one’s body with another’s. It suggested to me that the healing power of the human voice lies not just in the meaning of the words but in its resonant vibration, like the cat’s purr. By highlighting African and Black Brazilian artists, Ndikung and co-curators Alya Sebti, Anna Roberta Goetz, Thiago de Paula Souza, and Keyna Elaison continued the trajectories of two previous São Paulo biennials, which centered trans-Atlantic affinities. This year, the abstract paintings of British-Guyanese artist Frank Bowling, spread over different sections, embodied the idea of South American art as born from a complex negotiation between African and European cultures. Bowling’s painting series South America (c. 1960s), one of which can be seen on the ground floor of the exhibition, depicts a borderless continent in a sea of monochromatic color in a pulsating example of the pan-Latin-American movement, which gained particular urgency in the ’70s as artists fled local dictatorships and built networks elsewhere. In highlighting this series, the biennial seems to desire to reclaim such supra-cultural interconnections as a way to guard against growing divides. Yet to me, this legacy seems more a part of the long-foreclosed dream of a Marxist solidarity that supersedes race, nation, or class, one even more distant than the dissolution of national borders.Installation of works by Leiko IkemuraOne of the biennial’s (numerous) metaphors is that of the coastal estuary, where rivers meet ocean. These are embodied by works exploring ecological devastation, such as Forensic Architecture’s “Delta-Delta: People’s Court” (2025), featuring first-person accounts of mass pollution caused by Shell’s extracting oil in Nigeria, or Wolfgang Tillmans’s photographs of rivers, including the Amazon. Others center ecological grief, as in Emeka Ogboh’s sound-olfactory installation, “The Way the Earthly Things Are Going” (2025), featuring smoky odors, a choir, and cut-down tree-trunks; or hidden currents of culture, history, heritage, as in Suchitra Mattai’s “Siren Song” (2022), for which she embroidered vintage saris. Even Berenice Olmedo’s “Pnoê” (Breathing, 2025), comprising obsolete medical equipment, featured bulky glass torsos that looked as if filled with fluid in certain light. In a work centering disability and medical trauma, such an optical illusion underscored the shared vulnerability of all human bodies.Estuaries also inspired this biennial’s meandering exhibition design, with flowy curtains bringing out the curves of the pavilion’s monumental staircase. I couldn’t help noticing how often visitors were encouraged to wind, loop, and retrace their steps, enacting their own riverine peregrinations. From Precious Okoyomon’s “Sun of Consciousness. God Blow Thru Me” (2025), a garden installed at the ground-floor entrance whose sinuous paths are built from Northeastern Brazil’s desert dirt and plants, to Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons’s “Macuto” (2025), in which gauzy, sinewy curtains enfold a flower-statue, this biennial encouraged viewers to flow, suggesting many entry points, and multiple connections between works. One could walk from Okoyomon’s garden into Nádia Taquary’s magical one, or step inside the Certão Negro (Black Backwoods) archival section, providing context for historical Afro-Brazilian communities that also inspired Taquary. Installation view of 36th Bienal de São Paulo – Not All Travellers Walk RoadsNot all digressions proved equally productive. In a manner reminiscent of Ndikung’s curatorial practice at Berlin’s Haus der Kulturen der Welt, visitors were offered little guidance. Labels were scattershot, some placed far from the works. The six sections titles, with bloated, portentous names like “Currents of Nurturing and Plural Cosmologies,” “Cadences of Transformation,” and “The Intractable Beauty of the World,” were listed on columns also peppered with artists’ biographies. The torrent-like texts made it hard to identify pieces, or make sense of them — an oddly lackadaisical approach that often obscured rather than clarified the team’s preparatory research. While visitors desperately searched for (not very clear) maps, some visiting curators griped about the poor display of works they loved. Some pieces, such as Laure Prouvost’s “Flow, Flower: Bloom!” (2025), a mobile textile sculpture draped as if a bud opening above visitors’ heads, felt like sensuous, ornate distractions. Still others — particularly sonic works, of which there were over 20 — might only shine (or hum) once the crowds have waned. In the end, some art getting lost in the flotsam underscored the spectacular reality of biennials, in which dozens of works vie for attention, and curatorial fanfare can supplant the voice of the artist. To escape the biennial Babel, I attended a live offsite performance at Casa do Povo (House of the People) — though ironically, Marcelo Evelin’s choreographic piece, “Batucada” (2014/25) actually involved tremendous noise, with dancers banging on metal lids and other objects while gradually stripping, sometimes huddling down, dispersing, or charging the crowd, grinding elbows and butts. Yet the cacophony didn’t feel like a diversion here, but rather a provocation: Sweaty bodies swaying dangerously between chaotic ecstasy and anarchic rage. Walking out of the theater, I was reminded of co-curator Elaison’s comment at the press conference that “improvisation can be a technology of resistance.” Indeed, “Batucada” felt like a rehearsal for rebellion — one in which not only one’s hearing but the whole body, the whole collective body, is engaged. The biennial might lean into the quiet, but I was reminded that that could be the calm before a storm. Installation view of 36th Bienal de São Paulo – Not All Travellers Walk RoadsInstallation view of Suchitra Mattai, “Siren Song” (2022)Installation view of Marlene Dumas, “Live Earth” (2025)Installation view of Joséfa Ntjam, “Dislocations” (2022)Detail of Manauara Clandestina, “Transclandestina 3020” (2025)Emeka Ogboh, “The Way the Earthly Things Are Going” (2025)36th Bienal de São Paulo – Not All Travellers Walk Roads continues at Fundação Bienal de São Paulo (Avenue Pedro Álvares Cabral Ibirapuera Park, gate 3, Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion São Paulo, Brazil) through January 11, 2026. The exhibition was curated by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Alya Sebti, Anna Roberta Goetz, Thiago de Paula Souza, and Keyna Eleison.