Art fairs can sometimes feel removed from the places where art is actually made. White walls, careful displays, collectors moving from booth to booth. Art & Bali 2026 takes a different approach.
Now in its second edition, the three-day fair brings 23 galleries and art spaces and more than 300 artists to Nuanu Creative City in Bali. Instead of confining the experience to a conventional exhibition hall, the fair spreads across the 44-hectare creative city, bringing together gallery presentations, installations, performances, and public programs.
It makes the setting part of the experience.
Held under the theme Bridging Dichotomies, this year’s edition looks at the spaces between tradition and modernity, craft and commerce, and nature and technology. More than simply placing different forms of creative work beside each other, the fair asks what can happen when practices from different cultures and disciplines are given room to interact.
Looking at Art Through the Hands
That idea is especially present in What The Body Remembers, the fair’s flagship exhibition curated by Bandana Tewari with Brina Paska as assistant curator.
The exhibition brings together 26 designers and makers from India and Indonesia, exploring the relationship between craft, memory, and the body. Its starting point is simple: knowledge can live in the hands.
A technique passed from one generation to another carries more than instructions. It can carry history, identity, place, and experience. Through cloth, dye, weaving, and other material practices, the exhibition looks at how traditions survive while continuing to change.
It also creates a conversation between two countries with rich and distinct craft traditions—without treating those traditions as static.
Beyond the Gallery
The fair’s program extends beyond the artwork itself.
Nuanu Future Talks: Fashion & Art brings together more than 20 voices from art, fashion, design, and culture to discuss subjects ranging from cultural ownership and materials to technology and the future of creative culture in Asia.
For Nuanu CEO Lev Kroll, that exchange is central to what the fair is trying to build. The goal, he says, is to create a platform where people can discover, collaborate, and continue conversations beyond the event itself.
That matters in a region where creative industries are increasingly crossing paths. Fashion designers work with artisans. Artists explore technology. Traditional techniques find new audiences. Galleries look beyond their usual markets.
Art & Bali becomes a place for those intersections to happen in public.
Keeping Bali at the Center
The fair’s international roster includes galleries and art spaces from Indonesia, Malaysia, Spain, Italy, Singapore, and the United States. Yet its identity remains closely tied to Bali.
That balance may be the most interesting part of the event. Rather than positioning Bali simply as a backdrop for international art, Art & Bali is using the island as a meeting point—one where Indonesian artists and creative practices can be encountered alongside work from elsewhere.
As Vice Minister of Creative Economy Irene Umar puts it, Indonesia’s creative strength extends across art, fashion, craft, and design. The next step is building stronger connections between these fields, their audiences, and wider markets.
Art & Bali 2026 is one attempt to do exactly that. More than a collection of exhibitions, it is a space for creative practices to meet, overlap, and perhaps leave with something new.
Read more Stories on Simpol.ph
‘pause’ Found Its Homecoming in Benilde
SANSÓ: Heart Rooted in the Archipelago
Puregold Cinepanalo’s ‘Apol of My Ai’ Is A Love Story And Coming-of-age In One
