Georges Adéagbo was born in Cotonou, Benin, West Africa in 1942, where he still lives and works. The eldest of eleven children, he studied law in Paris. Shortly before getting his degree, in 1971, he returned to Cotonou due to the sudden death of his father. Unable to return to France, he began to create installations in his home and courtyard without exhibiting them for 23 years. Unfamiliar with contemporary art, he did not define his complex compositions as artworks and only accepted this definition bestowed by others later. Adéagbo began exhibiting his installations publicly in 1994 in Besancon, France (“La route de l’art sur la route de l’esclave - The Route of Art on the Route of Slavery.”) His work was subsequently included in “Big City” (Serpentine Gallery, London, 1995), “Die Anderen Modernen” (Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, 1997), The Second Johannesburg Biennial (1997), and the São Paulo Biennial in 1998.

An outdoor day-long installation at the Arsenale, “The Story of the Lion”, was an award winner at the 48th Venice Biennial in 1999. In 2000, he participated in “La Ville, le Jardin, la Mémoire” at Villa Medici, Rome and a solo exhibition of his work was held at the Toyota Museum, Japan.

He participated in Documenta, Kassel, 2002 and in the Venice Biennial 2009.

Work in the biennial: La resurrection de Edith Piaf' (2000) – extended version.

Guest star: Angélique Kidjo, the world famous singer from Cotonou, Benin.

Anawana Haloba (born in Zambia 1978, lives and works in Oslo, Norway) completed her studies at the National Academy of Fine Art, Oslo, in 2006. She is a graduate of the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, the Netherlands (2008).

Haloba has participated in the Sharjah Biennial (2007), Manifesta 7 (2008) and the 16th Biennale of Sydney (2008) among other exhibitions. For the 16th Sidney Biennale, curator Carolyn Christov-Barkagiev (currently the appointed Artistic Director of Documenta 13 in 2012) commissioned Haloba to produce a video and sound installation titled When the Private Became Public, exploring women's revolutionary passage from the private to the public realm. In 2008, the artist took par t in the project ”The Rest of Now”, curated by Raqs Media Collective as part of Manifesta 7, where she exhibited a sound installation titled The Air Between Two Women (2008), a conversation between herself and Francesca Grilli about the word 'residue' as it relates to human experience. In 2007, for the Sharjah Biennale 8, entitled ”Art, Ecology & the Poltics of Change: Still Life”, co-curated by Jack Persekian, Jonathan Watkins and Eva Scharrer, she exhibited a video and sound installation titled Lamentations (2006). She participated in the Venice Biennial 2009.

Work in the biennial: What If Zambia Colonized Norway...?