Anna Roberta Goetz
Collaboration with the 36th Bienal de São Paulo, one of the most important art exhibitions in Latin America, currently taking place at the Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion under the title “Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice”, curated by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung and his conceptual team.
Inspired by the poem “Da calma e do silêncio” by Conceição Evaristo, this edition invites us to rethink humanity as a verb — a living practice based on listening, coexistence, and the encounter between different worlds and voices.
In tune with this idea, Veneno and the Bienal come together for a series of mixes and sound selections created by the festival’s curatorial team, exploring sound as a space for reflection, convergence, and dialogue.
About the 36th Bienal de São Paulo
The 36th Bienal de São Paulo — Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice — is held at the Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion in Ibirapuera Park (Gate 3), São Paulo.
The exhibition is free and open to the public from September 6, 2025, to January 11, 2026.
Curated by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, with co-curators Alya Sebti, Anna Roberta Goetz, Thiago de Paula Souza, co-curator at large Keyna Eleison, adjunct co-curators André Pitol and Leonardo Matsuhei, and strategy and communications advisor Henriette Gallus, the Bienal proposes to imagine humanity as a living practice — a space of encounter, listening, and negotiation between different worlds.
More information and the complete program at: 36.bienal.org.br
TRACKLIST
First Selection: Anna Roberta Goetz
The series opens with a sound selection by Anna Roberta Goetz, a curator and researcher living and working between Switzerland and Mexico. Her work focuses on artistic strategies that challenge hierarchies, narratives, and dominant structures in society.
Goetz has recently worked with institutions such as the Marta Herford Museum and the MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt, and has collaborated with artists including Rodney McMillian, Cinthia Marcelle, Banu Cennetoğlu, Ed Atkins, Laure Prouvost, Florian Hecker, Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc, Isa Genzken, and Subodh Gupta.
Her most recent exhibitions include Long Gone, Still Here: Sound as Medium (Marta Herford, 2023), Genealogies in the Middle East and Latin America (Sharjah Art Foundation, 2021), and New Town Ghost (Kadist, 2021). Under the title Casa Tomada, she also organized an extensive program of exhibitions and performances in Mexico City (2018).
About the Selection, by Anna Roberta Goetz
This is a collection of songs that have kept me company over the past few months. Some were already part of my library, while others arrived over the last eighteen months through experiences shared with colleagues and artists.
On the last night of the Invocation in Guadeloupe, for example, Dory Sélèsprika and Anaïs Verspan played MAYA by P.LL during our improvised party at a restaurant — and that song has stayed with me and with Alya Sebti ever since.
Ella, elle l’a by France Gall got stuck in my head during a trip to the supermarket one morning in the fi nal week of installation. I played it in the offi ce right after as an antidote to the high level of tension we were living through, and several people from the team immediately started singing along.
Michael Kiwanuka had been in my library for some time, but after hearing Manauara Clandestina sing Cold Little Heart at the opening of the 36th Bienal de São Paulo, I’ll always associate the song with that moving performance.
Gilberto Gil was present in many ways throughout this journey, of course, but Toda Menina Baiana holds a special place for me, since Lynhan Balatbat-Helbock played it during the opening week’s party. The entire club — fi lled with Bienal artists, members of the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo team, and many of our collaborators, friends, and family who supported us along the way — sang and danced together with joy. It was a deeply moving moment and memory.
LISTEN
