The Novari Festival has announced its curatorial team for the 2025 edition, scheduled to run from March 15 to April 20 across multiple venues in the city. The selection emphasizes interdisciplinary approaches to contemporary art, drawing from global perspectives while highlighting regional voices. Festival director Elena Voss stated that the lineup reflects a commitment to sustainability and digital innovation in exhibition practices.

Core Curatorial Team

Leading the program is chief curator Dr. Malik Chen, whose prior work includes the 2022 Biennale of Digital Realms. Chen will oversee the main exhibition titled Echoes of Tomorrow. Joining him are associate curators Lena Petrova and Jamal Wright. Petrova brings expertise in performance art from her tenure at the Eastern European Arts Collective, while Wright focuses on environmental installations, having curated the award-winning Climate Dialogues series in 2023. Additional advisors include independent scholar Dr. Aisha Rahman and filmmaker Theo Lang, ensuring a broad range of media from sculpture to virtual reality experiences. The team conducted open calls that received over 1,200 submissions from 45 countries.

Program Highlights and Venues

The 2025 festival will feature 18 main exhibitions and 12 satellite projects distributed among the Novari Contemporary Museum, the Riverside Warehouse, and pop-up spaces in the historic district. Key themes include climate resilience, algorithmic ethics, and post-colonial narratives. Daily programming incorporates workshops on sustainable materials and panel discussions with artists from underrepresented regions. Attendance projections estimate 85,000 visitors, supported by partnerships with local universities for student access programs. The full schedule and artist list will be released in January 2025 via the festival website. Organizers emphasize accessibility measures, including audio guides in six languages and wheelchair-friendly routes at all sites.