Aurora, the Dallas public arts nonprofit whose past shows have projected video art onto City Hall, opens the 2026 edition of its biennial on Wednesday, Nov. 4, and this time the event lasts 18 days instead of one night.
Programs run through Nov. 21, Dallas Innovates reported, with artist talks, studio tours, workshops and performances of music, dance, sound and light, most of them in Dallas and a few in Fort Worth. Admission is free.
The run closes Saturday, Nov. 21, with an open-air show spread over Dallas City Hall, the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library and the AT&T Discovery District. Twenty-seven regional, national and international artists are in the show, among them New York artist Trevor Paglen and Dallas participants Diana Rojas, Eric Trich, Tramaine Townsend, Illeana Sisk, and the duo Melanie Clemmons and Zak Loyd.
A longer format
The 2024 biennial was a single-day event. Joshua King, who co-founded Aurora and serves as its executive director, told Dallas Innovates that adding talks, presentations and performances is meant to give audiences a closer connection to the artists.
Toronto curator Tairone Bastien and New York curator Julia Kaganskiy picked this year's theme, "States of Becoming," after talking with artists, residents and city leaders around the region, work that King said was supported by a National Endowment for the Arts grant.
Co-founder Shane Pennington, a Dallas artist, said in a statement quoted by the outlet that "art shouldn't be limited to people who already know where to find it."
