\n\tEach Venice Biennale brings with it the debut pavilions of nations who\u2019ve never before shown at the world\u2019s biggest art exhibition, and these are typically causes for celebration. But in the run-up to the show\u2019s opening in May, the inaugural Somali Pavilion has instead become a source of controversy, with artists from the country saying the organizers \u201cneither meaningfully consulted nor included\u201d representatives of the Somali art scene.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn an extended statement posted on Monday, four Somali art spaces\u2014the Somali Arts Foundation, Arlo Artspace, Shaneema Banaadir, and Baciid Center\u2014issued a statement criticizing the show for failing to include artists who are based in Somalia.<\/p>\n
\n\tAs the spaces pointed out, all three of the artists included\u2014Ayan Farah,\u00a0Asmaa Jama,\u00a0and\u00a0Warsan Shire\u2014have ties to Somalia, but they all work outside the nation. Farah is based in Stockholm, Jama is based in Bristol, and Shire is based in London. Farah and Jama were born in Somalia, while Shire is of Somalian descent and was born in Kenya.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe pavilion is titled \u201cSADDEXLEEY,\u201d a reference to a form of Somali poetry, and is being jointly curated by Mohamed Mire, curator at the Fotografiska photography museum in Stockholm, and Fabio Scrivanti, a Venice-based project manager. Abdirahman Yusuf is the pavilion\u2019s commissioner.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe statement called the pavilion a \u201cprivate opportunity\u201d and questioned how it was funded. \u201cThis pavilion does not speak for us,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n\n
\n\t\u201cThe art sector in Somalia has been rebuilt through the commitment of artists, cultural workers, independent institutions, collectives, and organisers working under extraordinarily difficult conditions, often with little to no institutional support and almost no budgetary backing from the government,\u201d the statement said. \u201cIt is therefore extremely disappointing that when such a visible opportunity for cultural representation emerged, those who have helped keep artistic life alive in Somalia were sidelined.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe statement was signed by nine Somali-based artists, including poet and photographer Bushra Mohamed, artist Shamso Mohamed Jeylaani, and writer and filmmaker Ifraax Aden, among others.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe pavilion\u2019s organizers did not immediately respond to ARTnews<\/em>\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n
\n\tOne artist also issued her own statement, saying she declined Mire\u2019s invitation to participate in the pavilion.<\/p>\n
\n\tSomali-born, New York\u2013based poet and filmmaker Ladan Osman said on Instagram that she chose not to take part in the pavilion because of the organizers\u2019 \u201crefusal to meaningfully engage with Somali curators, artists, and cultural producers who made two reasonable demands: to center Somali artists, and to remove Fabio Scrivanti as a co-curator out of respect for the colonial violences we have survived.\u201d Though Osman did not detail that violence, she was likely referring to Italy\u2019s colonization of Somalia during the late 19th century and much of the first half of the 20th century.<\/p>\n\n
\n\tOsman also said she had declined the invitation because Biennale president Pietrangelo Buttafuoco and the show\u2019s administration \u201cpersist in erasing Palestine, normalizing genocide, violating Koyo Kouoh\u2019s curatorial vision by relocating the Israeli Pavilion.\u201d She also mentioned the controversy surrounding Gabrielle Goliath, who was selected to represent South Africa with a work that addressed Israel\u2019s war in Gaza before the opportunity was pulled from her. Osman called that turnabout \u201cabhorrent.\u201d (Goliath\u2019s planned presentation will instead be staged at the Chiesa di Sant\u2019Antonin, while the South African Pavilion will remain empty.) <\/p>\n
\n\tOsman\u2019s statement mentioned a letter by the Art Not Genocide Alliance, which called for the Biennale to ban Israel from participating this year. Dozens of artists in Kouoh\u2019s main exhibition, as well as others representing their respective nations, signed that letter. The Biennale has claimed it cannot eject countries recognized as nations in Italy.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe controversy over the Somali Pavilion loosely recalls others that have embroiled African nations represented at the Biennale. In 2022, for example, Namibia\u2019s Biennale debut was criticized for being organized by an Italian curator and for failing to engage with the Namibian art scene. \u201cWe feel Namibia is not being represented at the pavilion,\u201d one unnamed artist told Artnet News<\/em>. Just a week before it was to go on view, the pavilion was unexpectedly canceled.<\/p>\n
\n\tUnlike the Namibian Pavilion, however, the Somali Pavilion is being supported by its nation\u2019s government. \u201cThis reflects Somalia\u2019s growing presence on international platforms,\u201d said Somali culture minister Daud Aweis in March, when the pavilion was announced.<\/p>\n
\n\tCorrection, 4\/14\/26, 5:20 p.m.:<\/strong> A previous version of this article attributed a statement about the pavilion to just the Somali Arts Foundation. In fact, the statement was issued by four art spaces, including that foundation.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n
[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Somalia.jpg?w=1024″] Each Venice Biennale brings with it the debut pavilions of nations who\u2019ve never before shown at the world\u2019s biggest art exhibition, and these are typically causes for celebration. But in the run-up to the show\u2019s opening in May, the inaugural Somali Pavilion has instead become a source of controversy, with artists from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-1882699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1882699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1882699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1882699\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1882699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1882699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1882699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}