The third edition of the Toronto Biennial of Art, Precarious Joys, is a culmination of dialogues and active listening, traversing national and international landscapes, artist studios, and art encounters. The exhibition reflects on social and ecological imperatives with six key directives drawn from the artists’ vocabularies: “Joy,” “Precarious,” “Home,” “Polyphony,” “Solace,” and “Coded”. These terms encapsulate how TBA artists’ practices amplify political consciousness and the power of aesthetics in shaping collective life. Some of the presented artworks address the various layers of history that define life in Toronto, while others reflect broader social and political structures of inequality and power under global neoliberal governance. Key issues that resonate across the exhibition include environmental justice, sovereignty, self-representation, belonging and migration, collective memory, feminist genealogies, diasporic sonic cultures, sacred plant wisdom, weaving as spiritual listening, and queer worldmaking. Precarious Joys is not a single theoretical assertion but a series of open dialogues and poetic connections, igniting sparks amidst the fragility of existence.
– Curated by Dominique Fontaine and Miguel A. López