Opening Thursday June 26th, 5 p.m.
Imagining a labyrinth means picturing a complex path where the entry point is known, but the journey requires exploration to discover one or more exits. In this way, the link between labyrinth and memory emerges as a powerful metaphor. Often, memory confronts us with similarly intricate scenarios—where recollections in the form of stories, images, sounds, smells, and other sensory cues, and the ways we combine them, can offer us shifting versions of the past.
The fleeting nature of memory and its ability to reshape narratives are reflected throughout this selection of works. In them, memory, time, and space play a central role in how the images are constructed—only to fade continuously before our eyes, as seen in the work of Alaa Tarabzouni. A more intimate, domestic, and familiar dimension surfaces—or is subtly suggested—in these pieces, particularly in the work of Siru Wen. Finally, the multilayered narrative across times and spaces, inspired by Walter Benjamin’s experience in Naples—where he redefined life through the “porosity of the South”—brings additional layers of memory into the collage of images and texts proposed by Sergio Vega.
Seismic shifts, sudden changes of course, and disruptions of destiny also characterize the historical labyrinth of BIENALSUR, the international, non-hierarchical, and decentralized biennial radiating from Km 0 at the Museum of Immigration in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Over the course of five editions and a decade of collaboration—with MAMBO as a host and partner—the biennial has explored the crises, virtues, and collective struggles of the Global South, all within a network spanning seventy cities across five continents.
Building on a decade of effort, this edition of the biennial delves into the past of places to reflect on their present—their fragile social and environmental balances—and to investigate the layered complexities of history, with its legacy of conflicts and wounds. The fleeting images, passing impressions, and fragile traces gathered in this exhibition bear witness to a memory in constant negotiation, rewriting, and reaffirmation, where truth is often veiled by the impermanence of the present.
Image: Siru Wen (CHN) #X In Times Past, 2025