Venice Biennale’s Global Mosaic Where Borders Blur and Stories Collide

Step into the 60th Venice Biennale and the city itself feels transformed—national pavilions become portals into what it means to be an outsider, a local, or something in between. This year, artists are flipping the script on belonging: Jeffrey Gibson cloaks the U.S. pavilion in vibrant Indigenous and queer symbolism, turning colonial legacies into a technicolor celebration. In Estonia, Edith Karlson’s sculptures merge seamlessly with a crumbling church, blurring the line between decay and hope. France’s Julien Creuzet conjures an underwater world where Caribbean myth and French identity swirl together, while Lebanon’s Mounira Al Solh rewrites ancient tales to empower women in the present. Nigeria’s artists reclaim stolen heritage and imagine futures yet to be written, and Egypt’s Wael Shawky stages a musical retelling of revolt, exposing the shaky foundations of colonial power. Each pavilion is a living argument: that empathy, memory, and imagination can redraw the map far beyond any border. In Venice, the foreigner is everywhere—and so is the invitation to see anew. #VeniceBiennale #ContemporaryArt #CulturalIdentity #Culture