Art Biennale 2026, a first look at the Pavilions/1

Some previews of the projects of the National Participations reveal a landscape of practices that challenge dominant narratives and reshape identities, communities, and territories. They are the first signs in minor keys of the upcoming Venice Art Biennale.

SAUDI ARABIA PAVILION – Dana Awartani

Dana Awartani, a Saudi artist of Palestinian origin, explores fragility, memory and the resilience of cultural heritage, reworking forms and meanings through references to destroyed hammams and mosque floors. The project is curated by Antonia Carver (Art Jameel) with Hafsa Alkhudairi.

BELGIAN PAVILION – Miet Warlop

After presenting After All Springville at Biennale Teatro 2024, Miet Warlop will turn the Belgium Pavilion at the upcoming Biennale Arte into a “living, sonic” sculpture inviting a collective dance. It Never SSST is supported by KANAL-Centre Pompidou and curated by Caroline Dumalin.

BRAZILIAN PAVILION – Rosana Paulino, Adriana Varejão

Rosana Paulino and Adriana Varejão, two of Brazil’s leading contemporary artists, will occupy the Giardini Pavilion under the curatorship of Diane Lima, a key voice in decolonial discourse. Through installations, textiles, and ceramics, they will transform historical wounds into poetic language and collective acts of resistance.

KOREA PAVILION – Goen Choi, Hyeree Ro

Provisionally titled Liberation Space, the South Korean project by Binna Choi with artists Goen Choi and Hyeree Ro reimagines the Pavilion as a living monument – a fortress and a nest. Through material-body dialogues, it explores social tensions, memory, mobility and solidarity, proposing a fluid space of care and shared imagination.

IRELAND PAVILION – Isabel Nolan

With Georgina Jackson’s curatorship for The Douglas Hyde Gallery, Isabel Nolan will represent Ireland with a practice spanning sculpture, textiles, painting, photography, writing, and drawing. Rooted in vast themes – cosmology, deep history, myth, spirituality, mortality, love – her works seek to make sense of the world, revealing the complexity of human experience through potent images such as surging waves and dying suns.

THE NETHERLANDS PAVILION – Dries Verhoeven

Visual artist and theatre maker Dries Verhoeven will turn the Rietveld-designed Pavilion into an emotional surveillance organism capturing social fragilities and political tensions. With curator Rieke Vos, The Fortress will make Europe’s widespread uncertainty tangible within the Biennale’s “safe space.”

Featured image: Central Pavilion, Giardini – Ph. Francesco Galli