School of Art faculty Sharon Lockhart’s new documentary film Windward is featured in the 15th Shanghai Biennale: Does the flower hear the bee?, which opened on Nov. 8 at the Power Station of Art (PSA) in Shanghai, running through March 31, 2026.
Windward, which premiered at the 63rd New York Film Festival in September, is presented as a series of 12 tableaux exploring the rugged coastline and close-knit community of Fogo Island, Newfoundland. Lockhart spent four summers on the island, home to roughly 2,000 residents, developing the relationships and observations that inform the film.
The Shanghai Biennale is curated by Chief Curator Kitty Scott and includes more than 250 works by 67 artists and collectives from around the world, including 16 from China, with more than 30 new or commissioned works.
Scott’s own time on Fogo Island informed her curatorial approach. “I was working on the Biennale while on Fogo Island this summer and the experience of being there had an important influence on my thinking. Windward (2025), a powerful meditation on nature and the rhythms of life on Fogo Island, perfectly encapsulates the intimacy of landscape and humanity that is at the heart of Does the flower hear the bee?”
This year’s Biennale theme explores how art can help attune viewers to multiple forms of intelligence—human and nonhuman—during a period of global uncertainty. The exhibition design, by all(zone)/Rachaporn Choochuey, treats the PSA as a garden-like terrain. Raw concrete structures echo the building’s industrial architecture, offering vantage points and an open landscape for wandering. Rather than a fixed path, the exhibition invites visitors to move at their own rhythm, encouraging moments of pause, reflection, and shifting attention.
In addition to the Shanghai Biennale, Lockhart’s work is also being presented in Sharon Lockhart, currently on view at the Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada, through Jan. 7, 2026. The exhibition celebration takes place on Dec. 3 and a Conversation with Sharon Lockhart and Kitty Scott takes place on Dec. 4.
Watch Lockhart discuss Windward at the New York Film Festival below.
