1. MATAAHO Collective
2. Pacita Abad
3. Naminapu Maymuru-White
4. Omar Mismar
5. Dana Awartani
6. Romualdo Locatelli (Nucleo Storico)
7. Ahmed Umar
8. La Chola Poblete
9. Lauren Halsey
10. Claire Fontaine
The Arsenale must be an incredible space to work with as a curator. The height, space, darkness, and structures from the side. It is always enjoyable to see how this space can undergo a transformation. Now, with this Biennale, the entrance was really spectacular. As the façade of the main pavilion was the MAHKU collective, the MATAAHO collective from Aotearoa, New Zealand covered the entrance room of the Arsenale with the work "tekapau."
This collective consists only of women artists and works in particular with the Maori. The term "takapau" means a woven mat, used in ceremonies such as childbirth. They believe the womb holds a sacred space where the newborns connect with the gods. It marks the moment of birth, where we go from light to dark. For this installation, they used cargo security belts, which symbolize movement but also transporting something to a new owner or even a new space.
Another work right after the grand entrance is by Pacita Abad, who is interested in the immigrant experience using a "trapunto" painting technique—is a method of quilting that is also called "stuffed technique." The name of this work is a very powerful "You Have to Blend In Before You Stand Out," about integrating into a new society.
The next work is by an elderly Indigenous Australian lady, Naminapu Maymuru-White, and in the photo, you see her grandson. She paints, carves, and weaves her dreams out. Here we see the work "Milky Way," it is a conversation between the "awake state" and ancestral communication; each star represents Mangalliki souls in the past, present, and future and the cyclical concept of life and death.
Next is a mosaic by Lebanese artist Omar Mismar. With his work "Two Unidentified Lovers in a Mirror," he reclaims the image of queer life, deemed unnatural in Lebanon.
This installation I would love to see again in a different space. Dana Awartani is a Palestinian-Saudi artist who looked for kinship in the knowledge of indigenous communities in the Arab world, India. The work "Come Let Me Heal Your Words, Let Me Mend Your Broken Bones" is a requiem for the historical and cultural sites that have been destroyed in the Arab world during wars and acts of terror. A silk work, filled with scars which she darns by hand. The color of the fabric is natural, dipped in herbs and spices, that carry a medicinal purpose.
For the first time in the Biennale, there were more deceased artists than alive. This was really a big thing and a change that was made to rectify history and give artists a stage that might have been forgotten. In this section, Italian artists that migrated outside were represented. This is a painting for an artist that moved to the Philippines and a girl dancing the Legong Dance from 1983, gracious and luminous.
The Sudanese artist living in Oslo, Ahmed Umar, is embodying queer histories of Muslim migration. He does a Sudanese bridal dance, the name of the work is "Talitin" or "third," which is a reference to "the third of the girls," which is a local insult targeted at boys with an interest in so-called womanly activities.
La Chola Poblete is an Argentine artist that uses large-scale watercolors. With that, she shows the merge between Western culture and the indigenous communities. Virgins with braids, swords slicing potatoes all come together.
Outside, the work of Lauren Halsey looks over the Arsenale. The columns are a mix between ancient and contemporary culture. It is also holding up the Black and African American diaspora and its history, and with modern-day pop culture in our lives now.
The final exit is with the neon letters of Claire Fontaine, they are everywhere, from the beginning to the end and now in all languages.
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