Amal Khalaf and Evelyn Simons will curate the next Busan Biennale, scheduled for September 2026.
The pair were selected through an open call and follow in the footsteps of previous artistic directors of the South Korean event, including Azumaya Takashi, Jacob Fabricius, Haeju Kim and the 2024 leads Vera Mey & Philippe Pirotte.
A founding member of the GCC artist collective, Khalaf is also a curator and currently director of programmes at Cubitt, London and projects curator at the Serpentine Galleries, London where she has worked on the Edgware Road Project since its inception in 2009. In 2016 she co-directed the 10th edition of the Global Art Forum, Art Dubai.
Brussels-based Simons led the art programme at Horst Arts & Music (from 2018 till 2023), an initiative mixing contemporary art, architecture and electronic music at an abandoned military site on the outskirts of Brussels. A group exhibition she curated, These Branching Moments – featuring Tosh Basco, Juliana Huxtable, Rebecca Salvadori, Jim C. Nedd and Unlimited Strip Club by Amari x Kajol Singh – is currently on show at FOMU Antwerp.
The Busan exhibition was founded in 1981 as the Pusan Youth Biennale. In 1988 that event folded with the Sea Art Festival and the Busan Outdoor Sculpture Symposium, to create the show in its present format.
