Mami Kataoka and Arja Miller will curate the 4th edition of the Helsinki Biennial, its organisers have announced.
Kataoka is currently the director of the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo. She was previously chief curator at the Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery (1997–2002), international curator at the Hayward Gallery, London (2007–2009), co-artistic director of the 9th Gwangju Biennial (2009), artistic director of the 21st Biennale of Sydney (2018) and artistic director of the Aichi Triennale (2022). She served on the finding committee for Documenta 16 in 2024 and will select the recipient of the 2025 Ars Fennica Art Prize, Finland’s biggest art prize. Kataoka’s curatorial work emphasises social themes, intercultural dialogue and the role of art in exploring global structures and the equilibrium of fundamental cosmic elements.
Miller is the director of Helsinki Art Museum (HAM) and the Helsinki Biennial. She was previously head of audience engagement at the Helsinki City Art Museum (2002–2008), chief curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma (2008–2017) and exhibition manager and chief curator at the Espoo Museum of Modern Art (EMMA, 2017–2023). Miller is interested in curating site-specific and multisensory works that explore universal themes and speculate unknown territories.
‘Our joint curatorial approach will be based on the idea of art that connects and inspires broad audiences, encourages transcultural dialogue and fresh perspectives, and shares universal views on the environment and cosmology. Our goal is to create a polyphonic and thought-provoking biennial that will resonate both locally and internationally’, Kataoka and Miller said of their appointment.
The Helsinki Biennial is scheduled to take place in summer 2027.
