Bodies of Knowledge is an interdisciplinary project led by Matevž Strauss and developed in collaboration with the Temporary Slovenian Dance Archive by Rok Vevar, part of +MSUM. It is the work of an international group of creators, including Cyrus Clarke, Giulia Cordin, Juliana Lewis, Luigi Savio and Monika Seyfried. The project's challenge is to make digital data accessible not only as searchable information, but also as a physical experience. The aim is to encourage the public to engage with and understand archives and collections better. Designed as an interactive "playable archive" installation, the project explores innovative methods of accessing museum collections by merging physical and digital spaces. This allows visitors to explore the archive through movement, while also contributing to its content. The installation transforms the archive from a place where knowledge is retrieved to a place where knowledge is produced, combining documents and exhibited artefacts to create new compositions.

Course K is an interdisciplinary project by an international group of creators (Gențiana Dumitrașcu, Adrian Judt, Simon Platzgummer, Andreja Pogačar), led by Janja Štorgelj and developed in collaboration with the University of Ljubljana. The university, as a community focal point for knowledge, serves as the basis for re-examining the traditional pedagogy and scholarship, and questioning how and where learning and teaching could take place. The project explores innovative and creative approaches to use existing infrastructure and combine online and offline environments in order to promote teamwork, community building, and civic and professional agency of students. A nomadic kitchen with an original mashup curriculum becomes a testing ground to rethink educational practices and proposes a new tool for a horizontal, non-hierarchical exchange of knowledge. By introducing activities such as cooking and eating together during “class”, and by moving from faculty to faculty on the university’s city campus, the project creates a social hub and informal learning space as well as a cross-disciplinary educational environment and performative space for the broader public.

Rethinking Retirement/Academy of Life is an interdisciplinary project led by Barbara Peterec and developed in collaboration with the Fužine Retirement Home. It is the work of an international group of creators: Guendalina Ballerini, Rebecca Carrai, Natalia Skoczylas and Elizaveta Strakhova. Through design and ethnographic research consisting of surveys, spatial interventions and props, the project encourages reflection on retirement and ageing, and promotes intergenerational exchange. Presented in two locations — the Museum of Architecture and Design and the Fužine Retirement Home — the project challenges norms and preconceptions surrounding retirement, creating opportunities to discover the knowledge and life experiences of older people and encouraging their active participation in society.

Mur-Mur-Murs from the Hi-Hi-Hills: How to Understand Reflected Echoes from the Forest is a project by the collective Krzak (Eliza Chojnacka, Kamila Kantek, Olga Roszkowska, Pola Salicka, Gabriela Szalanska), led by Simona Volaj Rakušček and developed in collaboration with the Botanical Garden of the University of Ljubljana. The project responds to the challenge of opening botanical knowledge to a broader public and, through the expansion of the Index seminum—a seed catalogue, transforms the botanical garden from a repository of scientific knowledge into a place of learning and awareness. By introducing interactive objects, sounds and words in the Botanical Garden, the project proposes sensorial and emotional engagement with the plants in an otherwise scientific, data-driven environment. Bringing together playfulness, imagination and humour, the installation offers different ways of understanding the garden as an assemblage of stories, materials, flows, anecdotes, relationships, smells, sounds, memories, and futures.

Delo Lab: Your Stories Make Our Common History is an interdisciplinary project by an international group of creators (Maxime Benvenuto, Petra Matić, Mateja Mlinarič, José Tomás Pérez Valle, Zuzanna Zgierska), led by Jurka Mihelin and developed in collaboration with the newspaper Delo. The project responds to the credibility of the information we receive online and the position of quality journalism in the digital environment. Delo Lab is an open collaborative research platform rebuilding collective memory that seeks to create new narratives, rediscover common history and reconnect the community. The newspaper archive is opened to the community, while audience feedback is used to improve the collections with previously unpublished stories and information. Audience members are given the opportunity to tell their personal histories and exchange their perspectives, which are then placed within the greater narrative of the community.

National and University Library (NUK), Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova (+MSUM), University of Ljubljana, Fužine Retirement Home, University Botanic Gardens Ljubljana, Delo, 14 November 2019–9 February 2020 Curator: Thomas Geisler; assistant curator: Aline Lara Rezende Photo: Janez Klenovšek

Exhibition, Ajdovščina Underpass, 14 November 2019–9 February 2020 Curator: Thomas Geisler; assistant curator: Aline Lara Rezende Photo: Janez Klenovšek

Exhibition, Kresija Gallery 16 January–9 February 2020 Curator: Lívia Nolasco-Rózsás (ZKM Karlsruhe)

Exhibition Curators: Ivica Mitrović and Oleg Šuran

Exhibition, author: Carlos Campos Location: Glass Atrium of the City Hall 13 November–8 December 2019

Exhibition, author: Adam Hudec Location: Glass Atrium of the City Hall 12 December 2019–5 January 2020

Goethe-Institut Ljubljana and Slovenian Cinematheque. A cycle of films produced between 1986 and 2019: Wie man sieht(Harun Farocki, 1986), Face_It! (Gerd Conradt, 2019), The Cleaners (Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck, 2017), and Das Netz (Lutz Dammbeck, 2004).

BIO 26 Talks is a series of dynamic round-tables conversations with invited guests from fields as diverse as science, philosophy, law, journalism, politics and design to explore the complexity of the biennial’s theme and exhibition. Led by the curators, each talk will be divided into two 30 minute sessions with a Q&A at the end. Location: Museum of Architecture and Design (MAO) and Ajdovščina Underpass, Ljubljana Photo: Janez Klenovšek

Shared Knowledge is the title of the accompanying program of BIO 26| Common Knowledge, that combines the projects, that were chosen on the open call. The projects' presentations will provide focus on different questions and issues regarding the themes of the biennial, common knowledge and information crisis.