On November 14, Iker will participate in the closing ceremony of Mugak, the International Architecture Biennial of Euskadi. Thanks to Maria Arana, curator of Mugak, for the invitation to participate in the conference.

Architecture biennials have become spaces where the disciplinary and the public, the institutional and the experimental, the local and the global intersect. Born as platforms to make emerging discourses visible and to rethink new frameworks of architectural action, their role today is increasingly scrutinized. Can biennials function as critical devices that expand the boundaries of the possible, or have they been absorbed by logics of consecration, market forces, and spectacle? Can biennials serve as spaces to imagine radically different futures, or have they become periodic events that celebrate what already exists?

This closing event, the Mugak/ International Architecture Biennial of Euskadi, invites us to collectively reflect on the potentials and weaknesses of contemporary biennials. In the current hostile and worrying context, questioning the purpose of a biennial can become both a political and cultural necessity. How can we transcend the merely exhibitionary and programmatic limits of biennials to turn them into laboratories for imagining better futures?

With this horizon in mind, we have invited Eva Franch, Ethel Barahona, Iker Gil (Mas Context), Fabrizio Gallanti, and Josean Medina, a group of international curators and cultural agents with extensive experience at the intersection of architecture, art, and culture, to join the conversation. The panel will be moderated by Marta Rincón.

The event will conclude with a site-specific performance in the central exhibition, presented by Txaranga Urretabizkaia.

Program:

6:00 p.m.
Part 1: A brief overview of the Biennials
/ Available City at the Chicago Biennial - Iker Gil
/ ⁠Water Parliaments at the Venice Biennale - Eva Franch

7:00 p.m.
Part 2: 
/Are biennials and cultural spaces promoters of utopia? - Marta Rincón, Fabrizio Gallanti, José Angel Medina, Iker Gil, Ethel Baraona, Eva Franch

8:00 p.m.
Part 3: 
/Musical performance and party