Multilingual collective hosts Swiss pavilion at Venice Biennale
An international collective will host the Swiss pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2026.
+ Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox
The theme will be living together as a social promise and a controversial form, said the cultural foundation Pro Helvetia.
+ Swiss arts outlook 2026: the perks of inequality
The multimedia installation is entitled The Unfinished Business of Living Together. It was conceived by curators Gianmaria Andreetta and Luca Beeler in collaboration with artist Nina Wakeford, and developed in collaboration with artists Miriam Laura Leonardi, Lithic Allianc and Yul Tomatala.
According to the press release, the installation was inspired by the voices of a programme, Telearena, broadcast on Swiss television in 1978.
At the time, the so-called “problem of homosexuality” was the subject of a controversial debate in front of a live audience. This programme was one of the first to allow people who identified themselves as homosexuals to express themselves publicly beyond subcultural groups.
In the Swiss pavilion in the Biennale’s gardens, the artistic collective will use the formal mechanisms of this television talk show in a montage and installation, according to the press release.
The staging will be innovative and will raise global questions about media structures at the meta-level of cohabitation.
The Venice Biennale is one of the world’s most important platforms for contemporary art. It will be held from May 9 to November 22, 2026.
Translated from French by AI/mga
We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.
Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.
If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at english@swissinfo.ch
In compliance with the JTI standards
More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.