The inaugural Toronto Biennial of Art in 2019, titled The Shoreline Dilemma, was the first edition of a two-part biennial that traced interconnected narratives around the city’s ever-changing shoreline. These connections sought to reveal strategies of resistance against industrial-colonial systems, uncover polyphonic histories sedimented around the shoreline, and open up relations between the human and more-than-human. To continue this artistic thinking and expand notions of relationality, in 2022, the second edition, titled What Water Knows, The Land Remembers, moves inland to follow tributaries and ravines, both above ground and hidden, that shape this place.

In relation to the two Biennial exhibitions, this publication Water, Kinship, Belief is a “third” site where the continuities, resonances, and dissonances between Biennial editions are extended. Its pages become a means to bring together the artists, artworks, collaborators, and ideas that have informed the exhibitions, irrespective of chronology, dispensing with categories, and part of a greater whole. Through its content and unique design, it is both a generative guide to the exhibitions and a Biennial site of its own, presenting new artistic relations that course through the book like tributaries.

Water, Kinship, Belief is co-published by the Toronto Biennial of Art and Art Metropole and edited by Candice Hopkins, Katie Lawson, and Tairone Bastien, exhibition curators for the first two editions of the Biennial.

Publication contributors: Adrian Blackwell, Ange Loft, Camille Georgeson-Usher, Camille Turner, Candice Hopkins, Charles Stankievech, Chiedza Pasipanodya, Ilana Shamoon, Katie Lawson, Melony Ward, Patrizia Libralato, Sebastian De Line, Susannah Rosenstock, Tairone Bastien, Yaniya Lee

May 2022, English
20.5 x 27 cm, 480 pages, 160 full-colour pages, 80 monochrome ills., softcover
ISBN 978-1-989010-13-6
Design: Santiago da Silva and Sean Yendrys
Book rope: Cesar Guzmán, Villa Alta, Oaxaca
Publishers: Toronto Biennial of Art, Art Metropole

Artists featured: AA Bronson; Abbas Akhavan; Abel Rodríguez; Adrian Blackwell; Adrian Stimson; Aki Onda; Althea Thauberger and Kite; Amy Malbeuf; Andrea Carlson; Ange Loft with Jumblies Theatre & Arts; Arin Rungjang; Augustas Serapinas; Aycoobo / Wilson Rodríguez; Bárbara Wagner and Benjamin de Burca; Brian Jungen; Caecilia Tripp; Camille Turner; Caroline Monnet; Curtis Talwst Santiago; Dana Claxton; Dana Prieto; Denyse Thomasos; Derya Akay; Eduardo Navarro; Elder Duke Redbird; Embassy of Imagination and PA System; Eric-Paul Riege; Fernando Palma Rodríguez; Ghazaleh Avarzamani; Hajra Waheed; Hera Büyüktaşcıyan; Isuma; Jae Jarrell; Janet Kigusiuq; Jeffrey Gibson; Jessie Oonark; Joar Nango; Judy Chicago; Jumana Manna; Kapwani Kiwanga; Laurent Grasso; Lawrence Abu Hamdan; Lisa Reihana; Lisa Steele and Kim Tomczak; Lou Sheppard; Luis Jacob; Mata Aho Collective; Marguerite Humeau; Maria Thereza Alves; Moyra Davey; Nadia Belerique; Napachie Pootoogook; Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa; New Mineral Collective; New Red Order; Nick Sikkuark; Paul Pfeiffer; Qavavau Manumie; Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh, and Hesam Rahmanian; ReMatriate Collective; Shezad Dawood; Susan Schuppli; Syrus Marcus Ware; Tanya Lukin Linklater; Tsēmā Igharas and Erin Siddall; Victoria Mamnguqsualuk; Waqas Khan.

Also included are artists for the 2019 Programs, Isonomia in Toronto and The Drowned World, and the 2022 Curatorial Fellow exhibitions, Ngozi: We Might Listen for the Shimmerings and The Shape of Songs.