Nikos Papastergiadis

Cosmopolitanism is an idea of our place in the world and an ideal of how to belong with other people. At its most utopian level cosmopolitanism proclaims a form of belonging that is free of boundaries and is open to the sensory awareness of the universe. In this essay I seek to explore the extent to which the world making activity of contemporary art is a form of the cosmopolitan imaginary. I will focus on the idea that the Biennale is a kind of world making activity and part of our cosmopolitan imaginary. I will also deploy the term cosmos in cosmopolitanism to address different forms of world making activity.