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The Biennial

The Coventry Biennial [https://www.coventrybiennial.com] celebrates and promotes contemporary art and artists.

It seeks to connect to Coventry, its histories and wider context, but to be outward looking too. The Biennial curated a programme of exhibitions in 2017 and 2019 in various locations in Coventry - for more go to [https://www.coventrybiennial.com/exhibitions/].

It is working towards further exhibitions in 2021 as part of the city of culture offering. It has developed links with artists and art organisations in twin cities including Cork, Dresden, Volgograd and Warsaw - and even a link with Parkes in NSW, Australia.

Coventry Biennial's theme for 2019 was 'The Twin' and this culminated in a show in the Herbert Gallery from 4 October – 28 January 2020.

The theme was a broad one but some work focused on a twinned town or city, for example, Adele Mary Reed's photos come from a trip which covered five twinned cities: Bologna, Caen, Dresden, Graz and Arnhem and Andrew Jackson's photos were triggered by his families ties to Kingston, Jamaica. Some work from artists from twinned cities was exhibited, most strikingly perhaps Šejla Kamerić '1395 Days Without Red', reflecting everyday life in Sarajevo. There are two publications ('The Twin Biennal Book' covers all the exhibited artists plus some short essays on twinned cities) and a shorter guide to Herbert gallery exhibition. These are available from Coventry Biennial.