Announcing: Coventry Biennial 2025

Simeon Barclay, At Home, Everywhere and Nowhere, Installation View at Gathering and Workplace Gallery, London (UK), 2023. Courtesy: The Artist and Gathering. Photo: Tom Carter

Today we are delighted to announce the title, dates, curatorial focus, a venue and the first participating artists of the fifth Coventry Biennial!

The fifth Coventry Biennial is called Obsessions, Possessions and will take place from the 3rd October 2025 to the 25th January 2026 across Coventry and Warwickshire including at the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum.

A full and detailed press release can be downloaded from here.

Curatorial Focus:

The impulse to collect is tied to our desire for meaning, belonging and understanding of ourselves and of society. Coventry Biennial 2025 will facilitate a collective exploration of the roles and functions of collecting within the art, museum, heritage and knowledge production sectors, the wider community and the artists’ studio.

The programme of exhibitions, events and activities will platform the co-creation and presentation of new artworks and exciting reimaginings of collections and archives rooted in society’s shared obsessions and possessions.

Ranging from major national art collections to personal and family archives, from libraries to what can be found beneath your kitchen sink, from warehouses full of artworks to photo albums full of memories, we will explore how and why we collect, what it means to collect and will examine the impacts, legacies, politics and problematics of what is (or isn’t) included.

Set against the backdrop of the development of a new, nationally significant but locally embedded “Coventry City Cultural Gateway” building that will see the British Council Collection and the Arts Council Collection relocate from London and Yorkshire to Coventry, our festival programme will welcome, question, celebrate and challenge the access, power and meaning of “groups of things” that are as varied as our obsessions and our possessions – whether thats footballers, the Enclosure Acts or a photo album.

Participating Artists:

We’re delighted to introduce the first artists and curators that are working on the Obsessions, Possessions programme, and further details on their practices can be found on dedicated webpages (linked to below):

• Andi 
• Simeon Barclay
• Sophia Ehrnrooth
• Leah Gordon
• Caitlin Kiely and Dr Jamie Larkin
• E.N. Mirembe and Rosie Olang’ Odhiambo
• Debashish Paul
• Prasanta Sahu

A Note from Paula Orrell (Chair, Coventry Biennial and Director, CVAN):

“Coventry Biennial 2025 embraces a contemporary view of collecting as an institutional practice and a deeply human impulse shaped by economics, education, identity, fashion, and personal histories.

Whether in the hands of a national museum, an artist in their studio, or a local resident preserving memories in a shoebox, the act of collecting speaks to our need for meaning, belonging, and connection.

By engaging communities, artists, and audiences alike, ‘Obsessions, Possessions’ invites us to see collections as emotional and political expressions of who we are, what we value, and how we choose to remember. It challenges us to consider the power and legacy of what is preserved—and what is excluded—across public and private spheres, revealing how collecting can shape both personal narratives and collective futures.”

Key Information and Dates:

Press and Industry Previews, as well as a Grand Opening evening event will take place on the 2nd October 2025.

Coventry Biennial 2025 is generously funded through Arts Council England’s National Lottery Project Grants.

Further details about the Coventry Biennial 2025: Obsessions, Possessions venues, artists and creative projects will be released in July 2025 and the full detailed programme and schedule will follow in September 2025.

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