Kitty Scott to Curate 15th Shanghai Biennale

Canadian curator Kitty Scott has been named curator of the Fifteenth Shanghai Biennale, set to run November 8, 2025–March 31, 2026, at the Power Station of Art, Shanghai, becoming the first woman to curate the event since its establishment in 1996.

“I feel very fortunate to join my respected colleagues who have organized previous iterations of the biennale,” Scott toldArtnet News. “Working in Shanghai, I’m reminded of the accomplished women from Asia and the Asian diaspora shaping the global art ecosystem, like Yuko Hasegawa, Mami Kataoka, Clara Kim, and Gong Yan, as well as artists like Yoko Ono and Haegue Yang.”

This iteration of the Biennale is to be titled “Does the flower hear the bee?” and draws from the recent scientific discover that flowers, rather than being simply passive resources, can detect the buzzing of nearby bees and in response sweeten their nectar to attract the insects and spur pollination. The Biennale will explore various forms of sensorial communication and intelligence, as well as connections between humans and the “more-than-human world.”

“We have long known now that when bees gather, they communicate and share knowledge with each other. We are only just recognizing that this network of communication extends even further,” Scott said in a statement.

Scott is currently strategic director of the Canadian charity Shorefast and its cultural program Fogo Island Arts. From 2020 to 2022, she served as deputy director and chief curator of the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, where she was the first woman to occupy the latter role. Earlier roles include those of the Carol and Morton Rapp Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario; director of visual arts at the Banff Centre, Alberta; chief curator at Serpentine Gallery, London; and curator of contemporary art at the National Gallery of Canada.