SYDNEY.- The 20th Biennale of Sydney: The future is already here — it’s just not evenly distributed was unveiled by Artistic Director Stephanie Rosenthal.

The Asia Pacific region’s largest contemporary visual arts event features 83 artists hailing from 35 countries and is presented free to the public across seven venues or ‘Embassies of Thought’ and multiple ‘in-between spaces’ around the inner city, from Friday 18 March until 5 June 2016. The exhibition is supplemented by a comprehensive schedule of public programs including daily guided tours, artist and curator-led talks, lectures, workshops, salons, reading groups and gatherings.

Artistic Director Stephanie Rosenthal commented: “The ‘Embassies of Thought’ in the 20th Biennale have been conceived as temporary settings without set borders, representing transient homes for constellations of thought. The themes associated with each of these ‘embassies’ are inspired by the individual histories of each venue, whilst the ‘in between’ spaces speak to one of the key ideas in this Biennale exploring the distinction between the virtual and the physical worlds. We’re asking visitors to consider our interaction with the digital world, as well our displacement from and occupation of spaces and land, along with the interconnections between politics and financial power structures.”

The Biennale’s seven ‘Embassies of Thought’ are: Cockatoo Island (Embassy of the Real); Art Gallery of New South Wales (Embassy of Spirits); Carriageworks (Embassy of Disappearance); Artspace (Embassy of Non-Participation); Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (Embassy of Translation); a roving bookshop (Embassy of Stanislaw Lem) and first time venue Mortuary Station (Embassy of Transition).

Performance is an integral part of the 20th Biennale, presented at each embassy and at in-between locations by artists including: boychild, Boris Charmatz, Neha Choksi, Mette Edvardsen, Mella Jaarsma, Lee Mingwei, Adam Linder, and Justene Williams, who is collaborating with Sydney Chamber Opera.

More than half of the 200 artworks in the exhibition have been specially commissioned for the 20th Biennale of Sydney. More than a third of artworks are presented at venues in Sydney’s inner west.

In addition to artworks presented across the seven embassies, the 20th Biennale commissioned twelve site-specific projects taking place at locations throughout inner Sydney, including a new work by Swedish artist Bo Christian Larsson that will unfold over the course of three months at Camperdown Cemetery. In a former gallery space in Redfern, artist collective Brown Council (Frances Barrett, Kate Blackmore, Kelly Doley and Diana Smith) present a new participatory performance about how we recall the past and imagine the future.