By CGN STAFF

A new Biennial has been announced at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, IN. Set to open at the start of the new year, the inaugural Notre Dame Arts Biennial will bring more than 100 exhibitions, performances, workshops, artist residencies, and other public events to Notre Dame and the South Bend region from January through June 2027.

Organized by the University’s Arts Initiative, the six-month festival will span visual, literary, spatial, and performing arts, with most events free and open to the public. The inaugural biennial takes “symbiosis” as its theme, exploring ideas of collaboration, interdependence, and cultural exchange.

Among the artists and writers scheduled to participate are Maya Lin, the artist and architect best known for designing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.; novelist Zadie Smith, author of White Teeth; and artist and researcher Sougwen Chung, a pioneer in human-machine collaboration who was named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People in AI.

Writer and photographer Cig Harvey will deliver the annual Ruskin Lecture presented by Notre Dame’s John J. Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values, while artist Claudia Bernardi, whose practice connects visual art with human rights and social justice, will participate in a weeklong residency spanning Notre Dame and South Bend.

Major performing arts events include an appearance by the 96-member National Symphony Orchestra, led by music director and conductor Gianandrea Noseda, and the return of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago to Notre Dame for the first time in nearly 20 years.

The Raclin Murphy Museum of Art will also present More Than: Artists in Collaboration for a Greater Good, an expansive group exhibition of contemporary art that will remain on view throughout the biennial.

The festival extends well beyond the Notre Dame campus. More than 85 campus units and outside organizations are participating, and nearly 40 community- and campus-led projects have received support from the Arts Initiative.

Regional participants include the Fischoff National Chamber Music Association, New Industry Dance Company, Performing Media Festival, South Bend Civic Theatre, South Bend Symphony Orchestra, South Bend Museum of Art, Merrimans’ Playhouse, and South Bend Community School Corporation, among others.

Several new projects will debut as part of the biennial. Notre Dame’s Department of Art, Art History, and Design and the Robinson Community Learning Center are collaborating on a public artwork for Eddy Street Commons, while several South Bend organizations are developing arts education programs aimed at cultivating new generations of artists and audiences.

Maya Lin will give a talk in March 2027.

The biennial will also feature international collaborations and visiting artists. Chinese theater director Wang Chong will present the English-language premiere of Lying Flat 2.0, an immersive performance incorporating live video and artificial intelligence. Qhapaq Qolla, an influential dance troupe from the Peruvian Andes, will make its U.S. debut during a weeklong Notre Dame residency.

Other international projects include an exhibition of contemporary Ukrainian sacred art and iconography developed with Ukrainian Catholic University and ICONART Gallery in Lviv, as well as a new artist exchange connecting Mexico City, Dublin, and South Bend.

“Notre Dame’s flourishing is deeply connected to the vitality of South Bend and its surrounding communities,” University President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., said in announcing the biennial. “The Arts Biennial exemplifies how the University’s commitment to the arts advances our Catholic mission by using creative expression to foster meaningful cultural exchanges and contribute to a thriving shared home.”

Additional programming is expected to be announced this fall ahead of the biennial’s January opening. Already announces is An Evening with Maya Lin on March 31, 2027, when the architect, well-known for designing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C., visits Notre Dame for a fireside chat in the atrium of the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art. Lin's extraordinary body of work includes public memorials, sculpture, earthworks, and sustainable, site-responsive structures that often engage ecological interdependence and the symbiotic relationship between humans and the built or natural environment. A brief moderated Q&A session with the audience will follow the conversation.

The Notre Dame Arts Biennial runs January through June 2027. More information and a developing schedule of artists and events are available at artsbiennial.nd.edu.