How the Biennale Works, Who Decides What Becomes Visible, and Why This Edition Is Politically Charged The Venice Biennale can feel like a closed system. Pavilions, curators, the Giardini, the Arsenale, collateral events, national representation, juries, prizes, protests: at first glance, it can seem like a structure designed mainly for people who already know the codes. But once you understand that structure, something far more interesting than a series of exhibitions becomes visible. The Biennale is a temporary model of the world. A place where art, power, history, diplomacy and representation come together. Not as abstract concepts, but through buildings, flags, bodies, materials, choices and absences. The Venice Biennale Arte 2026 is the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale...
as a value for the future In the north of Europe lies a territory older than the borders that were later drawn across it. It is called Sápmi: the traditional homeland of the Sámi. This area stretches across what is now Northern Norway, Northern Sweden, Northern Finland and the Kola Peninsula in Russia. Sápmi is not a modern state, but a cultural, spiritual and ecological landscape. It is a territory of languages, family histories, reindeer, rivers, mountains, forests, memories and routes passed down through generations. The Sámi are often captured in a single image: the reindeer herder in a snowy landscape. That image is not incorrect, but it is too limited. Not all Sámi are reindeer herders. Sámi identity also...
Koyo Kouoh: Not a Footnote, but a Shift in Power The art world loves grand gestures. Grand halls, grand names, grand egos, grand budgets — and, when convenient, a thin layer of progressiveness on top. And then came Koyo Kouoh. Not as a decorative “diverse choice.” Not as a polite correction to a white, male canon. But as someone who entered the centre of power with knowledge, precision, international authority and an entirely different compass. Koyo Kouoh was born in Douala, Cameroon, in 1967. She grew up between Cameroon and Switzerland and later worked from several worlds at once: African, European, international, but never neatly reducible to one identity. That also shaped her way of seeing. She did not think...
