To mark the opening of the eleventh edition of the UK’s leading biennial and international contemporary art prize, ArtReview partners with Artes Mundi and catches up with the six international artists presenting their work across Wales from 24 October 2025 to 1 March 2026.
Anchored by a group exhibition at National Museum Cardiff that foregrounds ambitious new commissions and major loans, Artes Mundi 11 invites thematic resonances between practices shaped by displacement, memory and the environmental and emotional costs of political conflict, expanded through solo presentations at venues including Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Chapter in Cardiff, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery in Swansea and Mostyn in Llandudno. Platforming global perspectives on the human condition, Artes Mundi 11 continues the organisation’s commitment to socially engaged art. Among this year’s artists is Sawangwongse Yawnghwe, whose work looks to the legacies of his Burmese royal lineage and the aftermath of political exile via painting and installation that reframes national histories and personal testimony. Yawnghwe recently exhibited at the Berlin Biennale (2025) and the Thailand Biennale in Chiang Rai (2023), as well as at various institutions including Kunstinstituut Melly in Rotterdam, Nova Contemporary in Bangkok, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul.
