Held jointly with the cities of Palma and Valencia for the first time, this year’s edition was very well received by the public, with well-attended sessions in public spaces and a rich exchange of ideas based around major contemporary debates. The programme also involved numerous cultural organisations from the city, with the complementary +Biennal programme offering 36 activities.

The threats, limits and challenges for democracy, digital rights and the transformation of cities were all central topics for the Biennial in Barcelona, addressing current events such as the war in Ukraine, new forms of fascism and the propagation of fake news on social media. The organisers for this third edition were supported by an advisory committee made up of the writer and Hellenist Raül Garrigassait, the political scientist Ignacio Sánchez-Cuenca, the sociologist Liliana Arroyo, the architects Núria Moliner and Josep Ferrando and the journalist Ángela Precht. In contrast to the 2020 edition, when tickets and sessions were online due to the health restrictions, this year’s activities were able to be held with open access.

Most of the sessions in the programme were recorded and can be seen on the Biennial website.

Participants at the Biennial in Barcelona included the writers Svetlana Aleksiévitx and Oksana Zabujko, the philosopher Yuval Noah Harari, the historian and political theorist Rutger Bregman, the film directors Carla Simón and Lucrecia Martel, the journalists Carolin Emcke and Masha Gessen, the journalist and political scientist Esther Vera, the philosopher and political scientist Chantal Mouffe, the political scientist and professor Adam Przeworski and the neuro-scientist Antonio Damasio.

The programme also reflected the cultural and linguistic ties between Barcelona, Palma and Valencia, which shared some speakers for the event and simultaneously offered the recital Fuster, Ferrater, Bonet: cànon a tres veus.