Following the announcement of Amanda Carneiro and Raphael Fonseca as chief curators of the 37th Bienal de São Paulo, the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo now reveals the curatorial team that will accompany the realization of the exhibition. The group is composed of the curators Ana Salazar Herrera, Léuli Eshrāghi, Rado Ištok, Ryan Inouye and Yina Jiménez Suriel, as well as curatorial assistants Amanda Tavares and Mayara Carvalho. Spanning trajectories connected from Latin America to Oceania, and beyond, the curatorial team contribute a broad range of experiences and perspectives to the development of the exhibition, which is scheduled to open in September 2027.
For the chief curators, Amanda Carneiro and Raphael Fonseca, “the curatorial team brought together for the 37th Bienal de São Paulo has trajectories linked to different contexts, yet shares a common interest in the Bienal de São Paulo, in Brazil, and in a collaborative curatorial practice. Their experiences in curating, research, critical writing, community-based practices, and large-scale projects strengthen an edition that unfolds through multiple voices, worlds, and languages. For us, assembling this team is also a way of affirming a mode of working grounded in relationships, listening, dedication to artists, and attention to the conditions that make each practice possible. It is a joy to work with colleagues we admire and with whom we share intellectual affinities, ethical commitment, and the desire to think of the Bienal as a platform for research, imagination, encounter, and meaningful engagement.”
Andrea Pinheiro, president of the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, highlights that: “The Bienal de São Paulo has always been a space for dialogue between different cultural, artistic, and political contexts. The composition of this team reaffirms that historical vocation by bringing together curators whose trajectories are deeply connected to some of the most pressing issues of our time. I am certain that Amanda, Raphael, and the entire team will contribute significantly to expanding the critical, artistic, and public reach of the 37th Bienal de São Paulo.”
About the curators
Ana Salazar Herrera
Ana Salazar Herrera is an Ecuadorian and Portuguese curator exploring nomadic, polylinguistic, and transcultural subjectivities. She co-founded the Museum for the Displaced (2019–ongoing), a platform addressing migration and cultural resistance, and leads the research project transequatorial (2026–ongoing). Currently a curatorial research associate for the Diriyah Biennale Foundation, Riyadh; Ana was co-curator of the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale 2024, After Rain; interim curator at Ludwig Forum Aachen (2022–23); and assistant curator at NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (2016–20). Recent independent curatorial projects include Currents of Restitution: Abolishing the Museum, Hangar, Lisbon (2025); Emancipation of the Living, Municipal Galleries, Lisbon and Almada (2023); and Now that we found freedom what are we gonna do with it?, co-curated with Kiluanji Kia Henda, Hangar, Lisbon (2022). She was part of the preselection committee for the 22nd Biennial Sesc_Videobrasil, São Paulo (2023); curator-in-residence at Künstlerhaus Schloss Balmoral, Germany (2021–22); a mentee of Project Anywhere (2020–21); and a Shanghai Curators Lab Fellow (2018). She holds an MA in Curatorial Practice from the School of Visual Arts, New York, and a BA in Piano from Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa, Portugal. Her writing appears in art magazines, catalogues, and academic journals.
Léuli Eshrāghi
Léuli Eshrāghi (Sāmoa, Australia, Canada) is an artist, poet, and the curator of Indigenous practices responsible for expanding the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal collection, initiating research, cultural mediation and exhibitions, and supporting relations with Indigenous nations. They curated Kent Monkman: History is Painted by the Victors with John Lukavic (2025); Rising Suns: Art from the Confederacies of the Great Lakes and Rivers with Katsitsanoron Dumoulin Bush (2026); Glenn Gear: ulitsuak / marée montante / rising tide (2024-25); and ᐆᒻᒪᖁᑎᒃ uummaqutik: essence of life (since 2024), led by asinnajaq. Eshrāghi previously served as curator of TarraWarra Biennial 2023: ua usiusi faʻavaʻasavili which engaged with Majority World cultural renaissance and connections across Asia and the Great Ocean, and as curator in residence at the University of Queensland Art Museum, where they co-designed ocean-centred exhibitions, residencies, and publications Oceanic Thinking, Mare Amoris / Sea of Love, How we remember tomorrow, and Blue Assembly with Peta Rake, Isabella Baker and Jocelyn Flynn. They hold a PhD in curatorial practice from Monash University, a GradCert in Indigenous arts management from the University of Melbourne, and a BA in Indigenous and Francophone Studies from the University of Queensland.
Rado Ištok
Rado Ištok is a curator and art historian from Slovakia, currently the curator of the Collection of Art since 1945 at the National Gallery Prague (Czech Republic) where he curated exhibitions including Jiří Kolář: X Bienal de São Paulo (2026), No Feeling Is Final. The Skopje Solidarity Collection (2024, with WHW), Eva Koťátková: My Body Is Not an Island (2022–2023, with Santa Patron), and the collection display The Ballad of a Miner (2024–2029). Previously, he was a member of the curatorial group of the 2nd Matter of Art Biennale (2022) in Prague and led the European Cooperation Project 4Cs (2018–2020) at Nida Art Colony (Lithuania) culminating in the exhibition The Spectral Forest (2020). Independent exhibitions include All That Is Solid Melts into Water (2023–2024, with Mariam Elnozahy) at Uppsala Art Museum (Sweden) and Kunsthall Oslo (Norway) and Liquid Horizons (2019) at tranzit in Bratislava (Slovakia). He is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Art History at Charles University in Prague. In 2025 he was a fellow of the DAAD’s TheMuseumsLab program, and in 2024 he was awarded the Dr. Alfred Bader Scholarship for his research of Czechoslovakia’s historical participation in the Bienal de São Paulo.
Ryan Inouye
Ryan Inouye is Kathe and Jim Patrinos co-curator of the If the word we: 59th Carnegie International (2026–27) and curator of international art at Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, a role he was appointed to in 2023 after serving as associate curator of Is it morning for you yet?, the 58th Carnegie International (2022–23). Prior to his work in Pittsburgh, Inouye served as senior curator at Sharjah Art Foundation in the United Arab Emirates, where he curated solo and group exhibitions and co-organized Active Forms, the 2018 edition of the annual March Meeting, which inspires dialogue around developments in contemporary art and culture. Prior, Inouye held the post of associate curator of Sharjah Biennial 12: The past, the present, the possible (2014–2015), which featured new works, site-specific commissions, and performances, and held curatorial positions at New York’s New Museum, where he stewarded artist residencies, curatorial collaborations, and discursive programming, such as the Museum as Hub initiative and the 2012 New Museum Triennial: The Ungovernables. Previously, he served as curatorial assistant at REDCAT in Los Angeles. Inouye was the recipient of a Foundation for Art Initiatives grant and earned an MRes in Curatorial/Knowledge in the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London, and a BA in English literature from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Yina Jiménez Suriel
Yina Jiménez Suriel is Artistic Co-Director of the XIII Sequences Biennial (Iceland), Curator of the transdisciplinary program The Current IV at Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (TBA21–Academy), and associate editor of Contemporary And (C&) for Latin America and the Caribbean. Her curatorial projects include otras montañas, las que andan sueltas bajo el agua (2025) at Ocean Space (Italy), currently on tour in 2026 at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Panama; desde los azules (2024) at Kunsthalle Lissabon (Portugal); the first and second phases of de montañas submarinas el fuego hace islas, developed between 2022 and 2024 at Pivô, Brazil; Cinemateca Nacional, Dominican Republic; KADIST San Francisco, United States; Delfina Foundation, United Kingdom; and the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design Manila, Philippines, including the editing of its two publications; and Vehículos. Una revisión (2018) at Casa Quien (Dominican Republic). Yina served as adjunct curator of the 14th Bienal do Mercosul (2025), and as co-curator of the Opening section of ARCOmadrid in 2024 and 2023. She was invited to participate in the Delfina Foundation’s summer residency program in 2022. In 2017, she joined the curatorial team of the Museum of Modern Art of Medellín, Colombia, as part of her curatorial studies training. She has written for several specialized publications, including Afterall, Contemporary And, Foam, Frieze, Revista de Arte UNAM, Terremoto, and Umbigo. Yina holds an MA in Art History and Visual Culture, with a specialization in Visual Studies, from the Universitat de València, Spain, and a degree in Architecture from Universidad Católica del Cibao, Dominican Republic.
About the curatorial assistants
Amanda Tavares
Amanda Tavares (Brazil) holds a PhD and postdoctoral degree in Art History, and works in the fields of research and curating exhibitions and publications. Among her most recent projects are: associate curator of the exhibition Fullgás: artes visuais e anos 80 no Brasil (Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, 2024–25); curator of the exhibition Arena, by Felipe Rezende (Galeria Leme, 2025); organizer of the anthology “Arte Popular: modos de usar” (Instituto Tomie Ohtake and Editora Martins Fontes, 2025); editorial coordinator of the 14th Bienal do Mercosul (2025); and researcher, curatorial assistant, and coordinator of public programs for the 22nd Bienal Sesc_VideoBrasil (Sesc 24 de Maio, 2023–24). In 2024, she was a member of the OPENING Lisbon 2024 Award at ARCO Lisboa. Her academic research on modern and contemporary art in Brazil in relation to popular art has been presented nationally and internationally, including at the seminar “I Can See It All Even With My Eyes Closed – A Virtual Seminar on the Life and Art of Madalena Santos Reinbolt” (American Folk Art Museum, 2025) and the colloquium “Reunião da Primavera: 30 anos da Fundação Arpad Szenes-Vieira da Silva” (FAZVS, Lisbon, 2024).
Mayara Carvalho
Mayara Carvalho is a Brazilian curator, writer, researcher, educator, and producer, holding a degree in Art History from Unifesp. She has worked with institutions such as Sesc, Museu das Favelas, and MASP, where she was a curatorial intern. She served as curatorial assistant for the exhibition Línguas Africanas que Fazem o Brasil at the Museu da Língua Portuguesa (2025–26), and contributed to the book “Negros na Piscina: Arte Contemporânea, Curadoria e Educação”. She coordinated the project and publication of a collective book centred on the subject of her academic research, about national identity and Brazilian modernity, and has written critical essays for the catalogues of the 33rd and 34th editions of the Exhibition Programme at Centro Cultural São Paulo. More recently, she took part in the New Curators Programme in London, where she also co-curated artist Duane Linklater’s exhibition at Camden Art Centre. Her practice is rooted in the intersection of art and politics, investigating the idea of challenging imposed systems, revolutionary narratives, and urgent ecological issues through an anti-colonial perspective.
The Fundação Bienal de São Paulo would like to thank its strategic partner, Itaú, and its master sponsors: Petrobras, Bloomberg, Bradesco, Citi, Vale, and Vivo.
This project is funded by the Culture Incentive Law, the Ministry of Culture, and the Government of Brazil, on behalf of the Brazilian people.
