Looking for a reason to hop over to Macao this summer? Here’s one that blends immersive installations, thought-provoking exhibitions, and a splash of digital dazzle.
Art Macao 2025 – Macao International Art Biennale is back, bigger and bolder than ever.
Running from July to October, this citywide art festival features over 30 exhibitions across six sections:
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Main Exhibition
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Public Art Exhibition
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City Pavilion (with Jinan confirmed and a Portuguese city to be announced)
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Special Exhibition
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Local Curatorial Project
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Collateral Exhibition.
Together, they bring more than 60 artists from over 10 countries and regions, each offering a unique perspective on culture, identity, and the human experience.
Sprawling across museums, hotels, heritage buildings, and open-air plazas, the Biennale is also a citywide festival that is woven into Macao’s vibrant urban fabric.
Whether you’re based in the Greater Bay Area or just passing through, this is one cultural detour worth taking.
What is the Theme?
This year’s guiding question is both casual and profound: “Hey, what brings you here?”
While the tone is warm and inviting, chief curator Feng Boyi encourages audiences to look inward and reflect on the deeper questions: Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going?
Through this open-ended inquiry, the Biennale explores identity, memory, and the shared human experience in a rapidly changing world.
3 Ways to See the World Differently
With so much to explore, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Here’s a trick: instead of trying to see everything, follow a theme that resonates with you.
Here are three ways artists this year are helping us reimagine the world through materials, culture, and community.
How Far Can You Go with Materials?
Image via Art Macao 2025
Bart Hess, a Dutch artist known for creating strange, otherworldly textures, takes you into a world where bodies are wrapped in alien skins and everyday materials feel totally unfamiliar.
It’s futuristic, poetic, and impossible to forget.
In a very different approach, Cai Guoqiang brings together fire, gunpowder, and artificial intelligence.
His works often leave behind a sense of awe, like watching something ancient collide with something yet to come.
Both artists invite us to rethink what materials can express emotionally and spiritually, way beyond our visual sense.
What Makes Us Human?
Image via Art Macao 2025
Some artworks speak to the inner self.
Others offer a wide-angle view.
Ann Hamilton’s Borrowed Hands, an installation slows you down, inviting you to feel the act of touch, memory, and connection.
It’s tender and deeply human.
Then there’s Xu Bing’s Satellite Lake, which looks at the world from way above, merging satellite footage, animation, and the messiness of modern life.
It’s puzzling, layered, but also makes you think: How do we hold onto who we are in a fast-changing world?
Both artists zoom in and zoom out—but meet in the middle where we all live: our sense of self and belonging.
What Does It Mean to Live Together?
Image via Art Macao 2025
Community is a word we hear often, but what does it look like, up close?
The exhibition Merchants and Warriors explores this idea through the lens of small-scale farming.
Shot across rural areas in China and the UK, the project follows daily life on the land—planting, harvesting, and everything in between.
It pairs these scenes with public events and tastings in Macao, inviting visitors to connect with the food, stories, and people behind it all.
Elsewhere in the city, a series of Community Co-creation Projects brings art-making into neighborhoods.
Created with local residents, these works turn familiar spaces into places for sharing and expression, sometimes playful, sometimes personal, but they are always grounded in everyday experience.
These projects offer a simple but powerful reminder: community begins with people paying attention to one another.
Whether you follow a theme or just wander freely, Art Macao 2025 offers a refreshing detour from city life.
It also offers a chance to rediscover Macao beyond casinos and egg tarts.
Next time someone asks, “Hey, what brings you here?”
You might just have an answer.
Digital Artifacts
July 19-October 19, 2025
Macao Museum of Art
The Immersive Interactive Artwork ‘One AI, One Show’ cAITM Co-Creating Works with Macao Audiences
July 20-September 22, 2025
Fantasy Box, L2, MGM MACAU
Borrowed Hands
September 25-December 12, 2025
Dom Pedro V Theatre
Satellite Lake
July 19-October 19, 2025
Macao Museum of Art
Merchants and Warriors
September 25-December 12, 2025
Rua da Tercena n.o 19
Community Co-Creation & Mutual-Aid Project of San Mei On
July 19-December 12, 2025
Block 2, San Mei On Building, Areia Preta, Macao
For more information, visit www.artmacao.mo/2025
[Cover image via Art Macao]