Tiwani Contemporary is glad to share that Dawit L. Petros will be participating in Things Fall Apart, the 2026 edition of the Toronto Biennial of Art (TBA), curated by Allison Glenn.
Things Fall Apart draws upon the enduring resonance of the eponymous phrase across literature, music, and cultural discourse as a way of marking periods of political and social transformation.
From Chinua Achebe’s landmark 1958 novel—whose title originates from W.B. Yeats’s 1921 poem The Second Coming—to its rearticulation in The Roots’ fourth studio album, the phrase signals fractured moments that reverberate across time and geographies.
Unfolding as an exhibition grounded in ideas of syncopation and rupture, Things Fall Apart positions these conditions not as moments of collapse, but as sites of possibility. Water, which was introduced as part of the curatorial direction for the first edition of TBA, emerges as a central throughline, functioning as material, methodology, and connective infrastructure. Anchored in the geographies of the Great Lakes region, the Biennial traces expansive yet interconnected relationships between global waterways—from the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean archipelago to the Persian Gulf and beyond—foregrounding how histories of migration, trade, extraction, and resistance continue to shape contemporary conditions.
Things Fall Apart draws upon the enduring resonance of the eponymous phrase across literature, music, and cultural discourse as a way of marking periods of political and social transformation.
From Chinua Achebe’s landmark 1958 novel—whose title originates from W.B. Yeats’s 1921 poem The Second Coming—to its rearticulation in The Roots’ fourth studio album, the phrase signals fractured moments that reverberate across time and geographies.
Unfolding as an exhibition grounded in ideas of syncopation and rupture, Things Fall Apart positions these conditions not as moments of collapse, but as sites of possibility. Water, which was introduced as part of the curatorial direction for the first edition of TBA, emerges as a central throughline, functioning as material, methodology, and connective infrastructure. Anchored in the geographies of the Great Lakes region, the Biennial traces expansive yet interconnected relationships between global waterways—from the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean archipelago to the Persian Gulf and beyond—foregrounding how histories of migration, trade, extraction, and resistance continue to shape contemporary conditions.
“The 2026 Toronto Biennial of Art is an invitation to view the Great Lakes, and global waterways, as a confluence,” says Curator Allison Glenn. “Growing up in nearby Detroit deeply informed my understanding of how water, as both a physical resource and a historical witness, connects distant geographies through shared, fluid systems. The expansion of the Biennial footprint across international borders is driven by this curatorial frame and a cohort of artists and collaborators whose work is profoundly site-responsive, connecting to histories and moments of rupture across vast waterways.
The Toronto Biennial of Art will be on view from 26 September to 20 December 2026.
Text extracted from the 2026 Toronto Biennial of Art press release
May 2, 2026
