Ten Thousand Suns

24th Biennale 2024 partial list of participating artists
Adebunmi Gbadebo (US), Alberto Pitta (Brazil), Andrew Thomas Huang (US), Anne Samat (Malaysia), Bonita Ely (Australia), Christopher Myers (US), Citra Sasmita (Indonesia), Darrell Sibosado (Bard/Noongar, Australia), Doreen Chapman (Manyjilyjarra, Australia), Eisa Jocson (Philippines), Elyas Alavi (Afghanistan/Australia), Francisco Toledo (Mexico), Freddy Mamani (The Plurinational State of Bolivia), Hayv Kahraman (Iraq/Sweden/US), Idas Losin (Truku/Atayal, Taiwan), I Gusti Ayu Kadek Murniasih (Indonesia), Li Jiun-Yang (Taiwan), John Pule (Niue/Aotearoa New Zealand), Kaylene Whiskey (Yankunytjatjara, Australia), Kirtika Kain (India/Australia), Marie-Claire Messouma Manlanbien (France), Ming Wong (Singapore/Germany), Nádia Taquary (Brazil), Nikau Hindin, Ebonie Fifita-Laufilitoga-Maka, Hina Puamohala Kneubuhl, Hinatea Colombani, Kesaia Biuvanua (Te Rarawa/Ngāpuhi, Aotearoa New Zealand; Fungamapitoa, Tonga, Aotearoa New Zealand; Kihalaupoe, Maui, Hawai‘I; ‘Arioi, Tahiti; Moce, Lau, Fiji), Orquideas Barrileteras (Guatemala), Özgür Kar (Turkey/Netherlands), Pacific Sisters (Aotearoa New Zealand), Pauletta Kerinauia (Miyartuwi (Pandanus), Tiwi Islands, Australia), Sachiko Kazama (Japan), Satch Hoyt (UK/Jamaica), Segar Passi (Meriam Mir/Dauareb, Torres Strait Islands, Australia), Serwah Attafuah (Ashanti/Australia), Tracey Moffatt (Australia), Trevor Yeung (China/Hong Kong), Udeido Collective (West Papua), VNS Matrix (Australia), William Strutt (UK), William Yang (Australia), Yangamini (Tiwi; Gulumirrgin; Warlpiri; Kunwinjku; Yolŋu; Wardaman; Karajarri; Gurindji; Burarra, Australia) 

Ten thousand words for the light of day. Ten thousand suns in ten thousand tongues. Ten thousand ways to look at all that the sun brings out from the night and at all that remains unlit. There has rarely been a single sun.  

Sometimes there were too many to count. Other times there were ten suns, shining too brightly on their scorching world, until nine of them were shot down by Hou Yi, the archer who saved its people from the heat. A sun is also shinning more and more brightly on our world, but we are not waiting to be saved. 

Not waiting to be saved. Not by a saviour, not waiting, not the salvation itself. Not waiting to be saved. But celebrating joy itself, produced in common and shared widely, generations of queer coming-togethers to thrive in spite of it all. In abundance and generosity. In building a garden for all. Resisting loudly to the end-of-days screams of powers revelling in picturing the scale of their own devastations.     
 
Catastrophe is a fantasy of power. It over-determines sociopolitical attention and crisis-temporalities. It diverts resources and agency towards the maintenance of dominant systems. A hegemony of catastrophe and a catastrophic hegemony. In this world, an ethos and aesthetics of collective celebration offers a gift to shrug off the apocalyptic normal as a governing rubric and totalising event-structure.  
 
With the nuclear light, a new collective mind of day and night was raised. A total end for an imagined universal humanity. Through nuclear war and great-power outsourced schemes of nuclear testing—from the Marshall Islands to Moruroa and to Maralinga—the great Pacific and its surrounding lands became a sea of poison. Rising through it all, the unspeakable image of the mushroom cloud. An image that could nevertheless speak for that which has no single image, the unrepresentable, invisible, and insidious carbon age. Unlike the contours of atomic blasts, the devastations of this era escape the frame. But as a longer, slower form of totality, the carbonic may still prove even more destructive than the nuclear. 

And yet the sun doesn’t stop shining. It doesn’t stop when empires wither and want to take down the light of day with them. It didn’t even stop in horror when places and continents were broken by these empires, invaded and settled. It did not stop when the HIV/AIDS pandemic was left to run through bodies, communities, and dreams. The suns shone on. They shed light below where broken pieces were being put together. Remembering what was forgotten, forbidden, and creating anew. Mourning and returning to life. In strength and exuberance. In carnivals of rays and radiance. In lineages of resistance and collective power. In Mardi Gras. Under ten thousand suns dancing gently like a morning.  

In a footnote of history, in 1945, a man stood on stolen ancestral lands and watched as the first of the explosions that could end the world shone brightly in front of his eyes—just as he had planned it. He was reminded of an ancient text, that spoke of the radiance of a thousand suns and the shattering of worlds. But what he misunderstood was that there are always horizons of renewal, each with a sun set to rise. He did not know that even if they summon a thousand suns to destroy this world there are in fact ten thousand suns that will guide and shine upon our paths beyond their mess. 

Biennale of Sydney team:
Aishlinn McCarthy (Head of Communications), Alicia Hollier (Exhibitions Coordinator), Andrew Dillon (Impact and Engagement Manager), Angie Valenzuela (Partnerships Manager), Barbara Moore (CEO), Belinda Wincote (Executive Assistant to the CEO), Billie Phillips (Assistant Curator) Charlotte Galleguillos (Deputy Director), Cosmin Costinaș (Co-Artistic Director), Deborah Jones (Registrar), Elizabeth Nguyen (Finance Manager), Erica Em (Digital Communications Coordinator), Federico Bornatici (Head of Corporate Services), Fredrika Mackenzie (Exhibitions Coordinator), Guillermo Lozano Leo (Head of Development), Inti Guerrero (Co-Artistic Director), Jasmine Stephens (Administration Coordinator), Julia Greenstreet (Exhibitions Manager), Kristin Liu (Grants and Advocacy Manager), Leigh-Ann Pow (Publications Editor), Louise Villar (Development Coordinator), Michael Kennedy (Producer), Noah Bennett (Production and Events Coordinator), Santy Saptari (Philanthropy Manager), Sep Pourbozorgi (Production Manager), Tim Barker (Head of Production), Vivian Ziherl (Curatorial Advisor)