Building Canada's Art Biennial from scratch, with Patrizia Libralato

Patrizia Libralato is the founder and Executive Director of the Toronto Biennial of Art — Canada's first and only international art biennial. What started as a bold idea in 2014 has grown into a free, 90-day contemporary art event that draws audiences from across the country and puts Canadian artists on the world map.

In this episode, Patrizia shares what it really took to build cultural infrastructure from scratch — navigating skeptics, securing multi-year funding commitments, and proving herself in rooms that weren't always ready to take her seriously as a female founder. She also gets candid about the state of women in the arts: why visibility alone isn't enough, why museum acquisitions matter, and why she's doubling down on gender parity at the Biennial even as DEI becomes an increasingly fraught conversation in North America.

This one is for any founder who's ever been told their idea is too big, too early, or too ambitious — and built it anyway.

The Toronto Biennial of Art opens September 26th. Learn more at torontobiennial.org.

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