Toronto Biennial of Art 2026: Dr. Sameena Eidoo on OISE's new, groundbreaking collaboration

The fourth edition of the Toronto Biennial of Art (TBA), themed Things Fall Apart has a new collaborator within the 2026-2027 academic year. 

Curated by New York-based curator and writer Alison Glenn, the TBA commissions artists every two years, where they create new contemporary works for a city-wide exhibition, have a series of performances and artist-led programs pertaining to inspiration of Toronto’s diverse local context of water networks and international waterways towards the rupture. 

This year, over 30 artists and collectives, including 16 new commissions will be on display at the TBA’s main learning hub, the University of Toronto’s Art Museum, among many other locations across the city. 

TBA has tapped OISE as a new collaborator, recruiting OISE students to lead Ontario curriculum-supportive weekday sessions for K to 12 students. 

TBA welcomes students from K to 12 through post-secondary to participate in its interactive programs. Artists, educators, and storytellers facilitate hands- and minds on-activities through collage, sound, writing, drawing, and more to support students’ engagement with art.

TBA’s multifaceted public Learning Programs, led by Mary Kim, Senior Manager, Learning & Community Partnerships, provide educators and students across the Greater Toronto Area and beyond with access to free, culturally relevant learning experiences.

Within the three streams provided, OISE students will lead part of the Storytelling Sessions, alongside the learning opportunities within the School Program and the Mobile Arts Curriculum (MAC).

The TBA Storytelling Program combines local interdisciplinary artists insights and experiences into the session and conventional interpretation on-site observations and conversations with the storytellers.

As part of the collaboration, OISE scholar-practitioner, Assistant Professor Dr. Sameena Eidoo, will be offering a new graduate course, through the Curriculum and Pedagogy Program within the department of Curriculum, Teaching & Learning (CTL).  She spoke to OISE News and Stories about the collaboration – and the course on offer.

What does it mean to collaborate with the TBA at this time?

Eidoo: The Toronto Biennial of Art (TBA) is a twelve-week event every two years. It runs from September 26 through December 20, 2026, with the University of Toronto’s Art Museum serving as the TBA’s main learning hub.

The 2026 TBA, curated by Allison Glenn, is shaped by the theme Things Fall Apart and framed by the question: “What can we learn from artists who explore rupture as an ontological tool or a way of understanding?”

Glenn’s curatorial vision includes a central provocation and draws on references ranging from Chinua Achebe’s 1958 novel to The Roots’ 1999 studio album--opening accessible entry points for teaching and learning.

This collaboration is taking place amid social and political disruption at global and local levels. Often described as an age of “polycrisis,” this moment is marked by interconnected emergencies, including climate disaster, war and militarism, systemic racism, economic inequality, and fascism. 

What does it mean to teach and learn within and beyond classrooms while things fall apart, and how might artists and artmaking expand our capacities to imagine otherwise futures?

What are your goals for the work going forward? How do you want to have an impact on the TBA and your students?

The TBA provides accessible public learning programs for intergenerational participants. Led by Mary Kim, Senior Manager of Learning & Community Partnerships, these programs include the Mobile Arts Curriculum, Storytelling Sessions, and School Programs. 

During the 2026 TBA, OISE educators will lead Ontario curriculum-supportive weekday sessions for K-12 students as part of the Storytelling Sessions, and, in turn, gain grounded experiences working with students from many local communities by mediating their encounters with art. 

For OISE students enrolled in Learning with the 2026 Toronto Biennial of Art, my goal is to support deep engagement with critical and decolonial theories, methods, and practices of the arts in education, alongside the biennial’s curatorial vision, the exhibition, and the connections between artmaking, placemaking, and imagination. 

All OISE community members are welcome to visit the TBA and take part in the various public learning programs at the Art Museum and other exhibition sites.

Please describe the special CTL course. How does it aid a student in their learning and degree journeys?

I am excited to offer this new graduate course – CTL5071H Special Topics in Curriculum & Pedagogy, Masters Level: Learning with the 2026 Toronto Biennial of Art – through the Department of Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning. 

The course applies critical and decolonial perspectives to the arts in education to guide students’ learning with the 2026 TBA as a space for curriculum, pedagogy, imagination, cultural production, and social transformation. It foregrounds land, place, and space, and asks what it means to activate the Biennial in Toronto—Tkaronto, Ateron:to, Chi-Odena—across the city’s neighbourhoods, shaped by dynamic economic, cultural, and social forces.

The course is open to OISE students at any stage in their degree programs. Students will visit exhibition spaces, attend and respond to artist talks, study artworks, and participate in other guided group and individual learning experiences. Students will have an opportunity to define and pursue their own study interests within the framework of the course. 

It will be especially valuable for students who are looking for inspiration and ways to deepen their educational studies through ethical engagement with new ideas, contemporary art practices, and the communities shaping this city. 

What's the plan for the next academic year – how do you want to refine and take this collaboration further?

Building on what we learn together this fall; we aim to deepen the partnership and strengthen advocacy for the arts within and beyond formal education. 

OISE’s presence at the 2026 TBA connects it to live public conversations sparked by art in the city, and it invites critical reflection on the role of the arts in teacher education and graduate studies in education. As Canada’s largest and most research-intensive education institute, OISE is well positioned to support such vital work.

Read the initial TBA press release here. 

Request more emailed information about TBA Learning Programs here.