Coventry Biennial - The Twin

The highly anticipated second Coventry Biennial will unfold across the city from the 4th October to the 24th November 2019 with the exhibition at the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum remaining open until 26th January 2020.

(Video by Jon Randle, Music by Derek Nisbet)

The biennial team and their partners invite people to learn, look, make, talk, think and walk with them. The biennial’s title this year is The Twin and it comprises a series of exhibitions, events and activities about relationships.

We are an international city; Coventry and Volgograd, Russia, were the first modern twin cities in the world and this year marks the 75th anniversary of that historic bond of friendship.

(David Cheeseman, Matters Not, mixed media 2018 - 19)

Coventry now has 26 twins around the world and is known as a city that welcomes migrants and refugees. When walking the city’s streets Punjabi, Urdu and Polish can frequently be heard alongside accents from across the West Midlands, nearby Warwickshire and Ireland.

The artists and groups exhibiting in The Twin all explore themes, ideas and processes which resonate through this international city including translation, collaboration and togetherness while also exploring some of the difficulties presented by globalisation, political inequality and conflict.

(Andrew Jackson, various locations in Kingston, Jamaica, photographs, 2018)

Ryan Hughes, Artistic Director of Coventry Biennial explains:

“Coventry has been an international, welcoming and activist city for decades. We are thrilled to be working with artists, our twin cities and a wide variety of partners to explore what it means to be together in 2019”

Artists who will be presenting work at the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum during Coventry Biennial 2019 include:

James Bridle, Lorsen Camps, David Cheeseman, Anna Columbine, Stephen Cornford, Maud Cotter, Katrina Cowling, Paul Crook, Anne Forgan, Dylan Fox, Mona Hatoum, Andrew Jackson, Ioana Marinescu, Adele Mary Reed, Lorna Mills, Alexandra Müller, Mathew Parkin, Parmar & Piper, Matthew Picton, Duncan Poulton, Lis Rhodes, Rafaël Rozendaal, Richard Scott, Mhairi Vari, Grace A Williams

Embedded in the wider Coventry Biennial 2019 programme are opportunities to speak to or eat with the artists, to learn a new skill, to warm yourself by a fire, to dance through the night or to ease yourself into the day with a yoga session.

It is this spirit of care and friendship which marks this as the UK’s social biennial.

(Stephen Cornford, RGB (Retinally Governed Behaviours), moving image installation, 2019)