The Art Encounters Biennial is a combination of an experimental art festival and a contemporary art biennial. The fifth edition took place in Timișoara, Romania in 2023, when the city was also the European Capital of Culture.

In the months leading up to the opening in May 2023, we worked with curator Adrian Notz as a curatorial sounding board (consisting of Cristina Bută, Monica Dănilă, Edith Lázár, Cristina Stoenescu, Georgia Țidorescu and myself) to develop the concept, which explored the interfaces between art, science and technology. Science fiction becomes a tool to bring the different fields into dialogue and to create new fictions about them.

For the Biennial, we selected Albrecht Dürer's «Rhinocerus» woodcut print from 1515 as the starting point.The woodcut is a remarkable example of artistic imagination: Dürer based his illustration only on sketches and descriptions by others, despite never having seen the rhino himself. It is a great example of how art and science were understood as one 500 years ago.We explore this European tradition of scientific and artistic imagination to create a narrative for our world, bringing together over 60 artistic perspectives and practices.