The Brooklyn Rail

Day One, Indigenous Visions

The preview days of the Venice Biennale are a way to feel the pulse of the art world, especially its politics and rhetoric. Last week I began at “Indigenous Visions,” a one-day forum organized by Brook Andrew. This well-informed Australian curator brought together some of the best thinkers who support a grassroots network focused on Indigenous ways of being. The productive day concluded with an inspirational performance by Pedro Wonaeamirri, the revered Tiwi singer, dancer, and visual artist from Melville Island in the Northern Territory of Australia. This honest and powerful artist set the bar high for everything I was about to see. I gained some understanding of what community means for survival during this divisive time of change. I spent the next four days visiting Adriano Pedrosa’s “Foreigners Everywhere” exhibition, the national pavilions, and a few collateral shows, focusing on what some consider the periphery, in terms of artists’ roots and methodologies.

Day Two, The Giardini

In the morning I started at the amended Danish Pavilion. On the building façade, the words “Kalaallit Nunaat,” Greenland obscured the DANMARK lettering. This referenced the historical complexities of Greenland as an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. Inside, Inuuteq Storch’s photographs bore the title, the Rise of the Sunken Sun. Storch’s photographs that captured Kalaallit identity and everyday life were presented along with material from his family’s albums, from archives, histories of Kalaallit photographers, and intimate snapshots of everyday life. The combined material explored how photography has shaped both personal and national identity in Kalaallit Nunaat. The accompanying brochure noted that Rise of the Sunken Sun “alludes to a decolonial or postcolonial condition where the metaphorical ‘child’, historically suppressed or rendered silent and invisible within the constraining family dynamic, now emerges, claims its space and asserts its voice.” The exhibition shows how the past and the present cannot escape each other.

I moved on to the Australian Pavilion, where Archie Moore’s kith and kin installation bowled me over. The dimly lit, minimal work is a memorial dedicated to “every living thing that has ever lived; it is a space for quiet reflection on the past, the present and the future.”

Moore’s extensive family tree, hand-drawn in white chalk, unfolds across the Pavilion’s black walls. Complete with names and long lines indicating connections, the chart illustrates the artist’s lineage stretching back more than 2,400 generations, and spanning more than 65,000 years. Subtly extending across the ceiling overhead, names inscribed there resemble a celestial map that suggests Moore’s ancestors’ resting place. When I looked down, the heavenly view was reflected in a channel of water that encircled the large square platform on which sit carefully arranged stacks of documents. These are the products of Moore’s years of research into his Kamilaroi, Bigambul, British and Scottish heritage—his exploration of history and his own identity. The work brings international awareness to the vitality of First Nations kinship and sovereignty, despite their having faced systemic injustices since British invasion in 1770. There is hope for the future.

Later that afternoon, I walked over to the Chiesa di San Lorenzo for the conference “Ocean Space,” and arrived in time to see "THIS IS NOT A DRILL," a performance choreographed by the Tongan artist, Latai Taumoepeau. Assembled from young local sports teams and community groups, eight performers stood on exercise machines and rowed, casting their long paddles gracefully through the air. Once the eight rowing machines were simultaneously activated, voices of Pacific Islanders performing the Me'etu'upaki were amplified, awakening global attention to the dangers of deep-sea mining. The 16-channel immersive sound installation represents Taumoepeau's interpretation of the ancient choral ritual Me'etu'upaki, where me'e stands for dance, tu'u means standing, and paki, standing with paddles. I left deeply moved.

Day Three, Arsenale

Just inside the entrance of the Arsenale, Adriano Pedrosa brilliantly placed the installation of the Mataaho Collective. (Members include the Māori artists Terri Te Tau, Bridget Reweti, Sarah Hudson, and Erena Arapere-Baker.) The gigantic, ephemeral “Takapau” installation consists of industrial tie-down straps that usually hold goods in place on trucks, in addition to snap buckles, and J-hooks, all elegantly interwoven and suspended in mid-air along the ceiling of the grand exhibition space. The morning sunlight poured in between the straps and illuminated the outer corners of the installation and the walls of the ethereal space, enveloping me in the floor-to-ceiling breathtaking traditional Māori craftwork. The accompanying text noted that the spiritual, political, and ephemeral installation refers to matrilinear traditions of textiles with its womb-like cradle, and responds to today’s circumstances.

I exited the Arsenale to visit the national pavilions in a building across the way. Upstairs was Peruvian artist Roberto Huarcaya’s impressive installation, Cosmic Traces. He arranged at hip height a 98-foot long, narrow photogram with an abstract image of what turns out to be a nighttime lightning storm in the Peruvian Amazon Forest. The photogram moved back through the room like a snake, then curled upwards and overhead. Nearby on the floor sat Antonio Pareja’s haunting carved wood sculpture, one end with conjoined feral foxlike heads. I was struck by how nature had powerfully made itself manifest in Huarcaya’s work.

Next, I encountered the work of Gülsün Karamustafa, one of Turkey’s most celebrated and outspoken artists. When asked about her installation Hollow and Broken—A State of the World she noted, “What I am dealing with is the state of a world hollowed out to the core by wars, earthquakes, migration and nuclear peril unleashed at every turn, threatening humankind while nature is ceaselessly scathed and the environment made sick.” The installation is magnificent. Suspended overhead are exquisite chandeliers made up of Murano glass shards; while looming upward from the floor are hollow, tower-like beige sculptures cast from old building molds, and a few shiny industrial carts. The contrast between the elegant shards of broken glass and the neutral seeming columns and carts both enticed and threatened, perfect for our time that the artist describes as “the unimaginable grief that keeps on striking again and again at relentless intervals, by empty values, identity struggles and brittle human relationships.”

Downstairs I discovered Abdullah Al Saadi’s installation, Sites of Memory, Sites of Amnesia. The wanderer, mapmaker, poet, and storyteller began by venturing out alone into Wadi Tayyibah, a seasonal watercourse in the Hajar Mountains of Fujairah, United Arab Emirates. He brought with him a poem that he read and reflected on amid the jagged, green landscape of the surrounding mountains. He camped out until he felt attuned to the flora and fauna around him. Then he selected stones on which he drew maps of his journey. His illustrated stones sit on a glass-covered display that snakes through the space, along with round metal tins, each with his drawings inside. The magical project conveyed a strong feeling of the artist’s communication with life in the Wadi Tayyibah. My questions were answered by gracious docents who opened a selection of the tins and small suitcases with archived drawings and illustrated stones.

I boarded a Vaporetto and made my way to the Timor-Leste pavilion some distance away. I encountered an unforgettable installation that uncovers some of Timor's painful histories and highlights the resilience of its women. The artist Maria Madeira activated the space, shining a light on the experiences of women during the Timorese fight for independence. Curated by Natalie King, Kiss and Don't Tell features a room of twenty-five tall, hand-painted panels, anchored by drifts of red earth, and splattered with betel nut sprayed from the artist's mouth during her performance. At knee-height, the artist’s marks of lipstick kisses reference what Madeira discovered in a room in her village Gleno in Ermera, Timor. The room had been used as a torture chamber during the Indonesian occupation. (In that room, right before they were raped, women were forced to put on lipstick and kiss the wall.) Madeira noted, 'Men fought and we are forever grateful. Lest not forget: women also fought. And we are eternally grateful. For men fought with their guns BUT women fought with their bodies.’

The next day I flew home filled with new understanding, inspired by what I had seen.