The Ukrainian artistic duo Yarema Malashchuk and Roman Khimey have been named among the participants in the 14th Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art. As ARTnews reports, the festival will run from 5 June to 19 September 2027 in the United Kingdom and will bring together 25 artists and art collectives from different countries around the world.
The theme of the upcoming biennial is “The Age of Magical Thinking”, and the exhibition is curated by Aimee Harrison and Lucia Sanromán.
According to the organisers, the exhibition will explore childhood and adolescence as periods of change, imagination and possibility. The project title references the concept developed by psychologist Jean Piaget, who described a stage of child development when the boundary between reality and imagination is not yet clearly defined. The organisers propose considering magical thinking as a way to imagine alternative future scenarios amid global uncertainty. In their works, the artists will address themes including childhood experience, children’s rights, the role of play in shaping personality, and the impact of technology on how younger generations perceive the world.
Other participants announced for the 14th Liverpool Biennial include artist Francis Alÿs, Mexican artist Tania Candiani, Dutch photographer Rineke Dijkstra, artist Petrit Halilaj, and British artist Ruth Ewan. The works will be shown across Liverpool’s key cultural venues, including Bluecoat, FACT Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery, Open Eye Gallery, Victoria Gallery & Museum, as well as Liverpool Cathedral. In addition, a public art project is being prepared for Williamson Square, to be created by artist Harold Offeh together with local young people.
The Liverpool Biennial was founded in 1998. It takes place every two years and is the UK’s largest festival of contemporary visual art.
Yarema Malashchuk and Roman Khimey are originally from Kolomyia; they graduated from the cinematography department of the I. K. Karpenko-Karyi Kyiv National University of Theatre, Cinema and Television.
As an artistic duo, they have worked since 2016 at the intersection of documentary and fiction film, exploring themes of post-imperial legacy, collective memory and trauma. In 2019, they won the top prize in the young Ukrainian artists’ competition “MUHi”, and in 2020 they became winners of the main PinchukArtCentre Prize.
The duo’s work has been presented at the European biennial Manifesta 14 in Pristina (2022) and at the exhibition This is Ukraine: Defending Freedom as part of the 59th Venice Biennale. In November 2025, Malashchuk and Khimey received the Offscreen Paris Curatorial Prize for the video installation You Shouldn't Have to See This (“You Shouldn’t Have to See This”), dedicated to the abduction of Ukrainian children during the war.