After withdrawing from the event in 2024, both Scotland and Wales will be represented at next year’s Venice Biennale (9 May-22 November 2026).
The Glasgow based artist duo Davide Bugarin and Angel Cohn Castle, known as Bugarin + Castle, will represent Scotland. Meanwhile the artist Manon Awst and critic Dylan Huw will collaborate on the Wales presentation. Both countries will participate as official collateral events, rather than as pavilions.
Bugarin + Castle’s work will be curated by Mount Stuart Trust, a contemporary art organisation based on the Isle of Bute. Scotland + Venice, the arts body responsible for the Scottish presentation at the world’s most prestigious biennial, has commissioned the piece.
The artist duo will present a sculptural, performance and moving image work that uses “the concept of the parade as a lens to explore complex emotional legacies of shame, pride and celebration,” says a project statement.
In their own statement, Bugarin + Castle say: “We’re thrilled to show new work together in Venice, transforming the venue [to be announced] with spatial and drag-inflected interventions that confront questions of gendered performance and colonial sound control, rooted in our lived experience. We aim to trouble easy narratives on the contested ground of identity today.”
The Scotland + Venice presentation at the next Venice Biennale is funded by Creative Scotland—the government-funded development body for the arts and creative industries in Scotland—British Council Scotland, and the National Galleries of Scotland.
Alberta Whittle represented Scotland in Venice at the 2022 Biennale. A Scotland + Venice spokesperson says that involvement in the biennale was however paused in 2023 to enable the project partners to determine the future viability of the project and the effectiveness of the approach. Scotland + Venice has also committed to taking part in the biennials of 2028 and 2030.
Meanwhile the last artist chosen to represent Wales was Sean Edwards in 2019. His exhibition was overseen by the Arts Council of Wales (ACW), the Welsh-government funded body behind next year’s Venice presentation.
This year’s artist, Carmarthen-based Awst, creates sculptures and site-specific works underpinned by ecological narratives. Cardiff-based Huw says his work is “guided by long-term collaborations and emerges from playful, research-led, translingual and interdisciplinary processes”. The galleries Oriel Davies in Newtown and Oriel Myrddin in Carmarthen will also feed into the project.
A spokesperson for the ACW tells The Art Newspaper: “In 2022, we decided to pause our participation in the Venice Biennale and spend some time rethinking our approach. We needed to ask some questions about working internationally, about our activity in the context of the climate emergency, and our commitment to widening engagement.”
A reduction in funding from the Welsh Government also meant that the ACW had a responsibility to review all of its work, including Wales in Venice, the spokesperson says.
In 2022, ACW instead offered grants to ten artists as part of a programme called “Wales Venice 10 Fellowship”. The ten fellows, including the artists Paul Eastwood and Cinzia Mutigli, each received £15,000 “to research and/or engage with the Venice Biennale 59th International Art Exhibition [2022] in a meaningful way”, says a statement.
