The first edition of the non-biennial was held in 2024 in Mexico City, the second in various cities across Ecuador in 2025, and the third will take place in Peru from March 25 to April 1, 2026.
The Radical School’s Non-Biennial: This institution once again presents the Non-Biennial, a non-competitive gathering space for creation, art, and knowledge. In this third edition, taking place from March 25 to April 1, 2026, in Peru, participants and attendees will have the opportunity to engage with their own work and that of others.
Social bonds take precedence over the individual. The school’s motto is “to exist without negating the other.” In this gathering, there is no curation or competition; the non-biennial is a space for convergence and connection.
The Radical School: The Classroom Is Somewhere Else
The Radical School was founded in 2019 with a fundamental mission: to transform traditional models of knowledge through direct experience. The complexity of today’s realities demands new ways of transmitting knowledge. Traditional education, based on assessment and hierarchy, reproduces the power structures that must be challenged in order to transform the world. The School proposes a situated pedagogy, rooted in the local context, community ties, and ancestral practices that have sustained life for centuries without negating the existence of others.
“Onepath to knowledge is through experience and the deconstruction of reality itself”— Radical School
The school’s core philosophy is based on what they call “radical architecture.” It is not just about buildings and forms, but about the way we live our lives and weave meaning together with others. Architecture as dance, as a reciprocal relationship with place, with the living world. Architecture, too, as a love for the land.
This vision is not limited to the conceptual realm; it is embodied in a concrete academic program. The Master’s in Radical Architectures invites individuals willing to subject their knowledge to a creative crisis, to destabilize what they believe they know in order to awaken new imaginaries. The courses are structured as theoretical-practical workshops that take place in regions of immense social, cultural, and environmental richness. Geography becomes the classroom, the climate becomes the method, and the community becomes the teacher.
Despite its short history, Escuela Radical has been recognized with several major awards, including the “Top 100 Visionaries in Education” Award, presented by the Global Forum for Education and Learning, USA, in 2021; the Good Municipal Governance Award, Sustainable Cities Category, Eco-Apertus, in Mexico, 2020; and an honorable mention in the Azogues 2032 Vision Ideas Contest, Eco-Apertus, in collaboration with Tacti.co, Ecuador, 2020.
However, the prizes are nothing without the adventures.
Extreme Adventures: Learning from the Wind
Among the school’s key experiences are Radical Adventures: immersion stays in indigenous communities. More than just trips or fieldwork, they are exercises in existential deconstruction. Learning takes place through connection, love, respect, and action. In these adventures , there is no enjoyment of exoticism, but rather a responsible bond with the community.
The goal is to achieve a way of life that does not negate the other. Every community is a way of engaging with life. The Radical School proposes being oneself while simultaneously existing in connection with others. The school’s members, the Radicals, have already been to various regions of Mexico and to countries such as Peru, Costa Rica, and Ecuador, among others.
Rather than simply conveying content, Radical Adventures create the conditions for reality to speak for itself. It is in this gesture that the ethical, emotional, and intellectual foundation of the non-biennial lies.
The Radical School’s “Non-Biennial”: Sharing, Not Competing
How can we expand and celebrate a project that has made criticism, community, and experience its core pillars? The answer is the non-biennial. It is not an event that awards prizes, selects participants, or establishes a hierarchy, but rathera space where anyone can share their perspectives on reality without institutional validation.
The Non-Biennial breaks with the historical tradition of biennials—institutions that emerged in the 17th century, aligned with European rhythms and logic—and proposes a different temporality, one more in tune with the community’s own rhythms. There is no curation. What exists is the experience of coexisting, listening, showing, and proposing.
In this space, exhibitions, workshops, talks, debates, sound and visual practices, performances, and any form of expression have a place. Not as objects seeking recognition, but as gestures seeking an encounter. There is no social bond without desire. The Non-Biennial is a political and affective act: it rejects the logic of the filter to affirm plurality.
In an age when art, culture, and knowledge are subject to the laws of supply and demand, in an era when it seems we can only relate to one another through power and capital,the non-biennial offers a space we need: a place where creation can be a form of connection. The Radical School reminds us that creating is not about competing, but about sharing possible worlds.
Discover other creative gathering spots in AW Magazine.
