Co-presented by AGO, Sydney Biennial and the Canada Council for the Arts

aabaakwad 2020 NIRIN is an international four day gathering of Indigenous artists, curators and thinkers launching the 22nd Biennale of Sydney 2020.

Aabaakwad is an Indigenous-led conversation on Indigenous art by those who create, curate and write about it. This year gathers artists from over 24 First Nations and 12 countries.

aabaakwad 2020 NIRIN is a powerful international collaborative gathering set to launch the opening of  22nd Biennale of Sydney 2020 at a time in our world when a sense of urgency needs to be addressed through Indigenous philosophies and environmental knowledge systems, creativity and education.  We join together to empower new thought and dialogue around broader issues of diaspora, borders, sovereignty, the decolonial, food/water sovereignty, languages, power of objects and restitution/repatriation and healing, trauma and transformation. These issues are central to aabaakwad and NIRIN.

aabaakwad 2020 NIRIN is a collaboration between aabaakwad founder Wanda Nanibush, an Anishinaabe curator of Indigenous Art at the AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario) and Wiradjuri artist/scholar Brook Andrew artist and artistic director of NIRIN, 22nd Biennale of Sydney 2020.

This year we are adding a day of live performance art works through the Biennial and an expanded music program.

See the full schedule.