The inaugural Notre Dame Arts Biennial will debut in spring 2027, running from January to June. Events will take place across campus and the South Bend area, as well as at select locations within Notre Dame’s global network.

The theme of the inaugural festival is symbiosis, inviting audiences and participants to contemplate cooperation and interdependence by studying, practicing, and experiencing the arts. The goals of the festival reflect its debut theme: to energize and activate the arts on campus, strengthen community partnerships, and cultivate global connections through cultural exchange.

Collaboration is an essential part of the festival, which will create new opportunities to partner with Notre Dame through residencies, courses, symposia, commissions, and exhibitions. “Following Fr. Robert Dowd’s call to be bridge builders, we are focused on community partnerships,” said Michael Schreffler, director of the Notre Dame Arts Initiative. “The Biennial is the centerpiece of our efforts in that area.”

The Arts Initiative is a key priority of the University’s strategic framework. It spearheads interdisciplinary research and teaching in the arts and will create compelling new programs that provide intellectually rich arts experiences to the Notre Dame community and beyond. The Biennial is a signature component of the initiative, and all exhibits and events associated with the biennial will be open to the public.

Audiences can expect anchor programming that includes an exhibition at the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art, performances at the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center, and events convened by the School of Architecture and the College of Arts & Letters. Notre Dame students will play a key role in the planning and implementation of festival programming, gaining curatorial and arts administrative skills through experiential learning.

“We are also eager to co-plan additional biennial programming that emerges from colleagues on and off-campus and that elaborates different dimensions of the festival’s theme,” Schreffler said. “This might include things like developing special courses, planning student performances or exhibitions, or hosting guest artists and scholars-in-residence. We’re also motivated by the role the arts play across disciplines and are eager to collaborate with non-arts partners.”

To learn more about participating in the 2027 Notre Dame Arts Biennial, contact Rebecca Struch, Arts Initiative managing director.

To stay up to date with the Arts Initiative, sign up for the mailing list.

Originally published by Emily Monacelli Guzman at strategicframework.nd.edu on March 24, 2025.