Kiwanga’s exhibition, which she has called Trinket, draw on the city’s history as a centre of the bead trade that dates back to the 14th century
Artist Kapwani Kiwanga has covered the Canada Pavilion at the Venice Biennale with tiny glass beads – millions and millions of them. In the interior, tightly spaced strands colour the walls from top to bottom in swathes of yellow, orange and purple, while carefully placed passages of white and grey are used to create long arching lines – almost as though the artist had painted abstract murals directly on the walls.
Visiting the Venice workshop, close to the Biennale grounds, Kiwanga found the atmosphere was particularly calm as the female beaders practised a craft that dates back to the 14th century, when it was key to the city’s role in global trade. Over the centuries and on different continents, strands of Venetian glass beads were exchanged for precious metals, for furs and even for people in the slave trade.
It’s these “regimes of value” that Kiwanga takes as her theme. The installation in the pavilion also includes several abstract sculptures incorporating some of the precious metals, rare wood and palm oil that beads were once able to buy. The title of the show speaks to these tensions: Kiwanga has called it Trinket.
Kiwanga, who studied anthropology at McGill University before her move to Europe, estimates that 70 per cent of her work on any project is research. This time she spent hours in archives studying the history of beads.The installation’s program credits a dozen collaborators, including design studios, beadworks and foundries. Venice no longer makes glass beads – apparently the craft fell afoul of European regulations – but the coloured beads inside the pavilion were historic Venetian stock.
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