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Wednesday May 13, 2026<\/p>\n
Wednesday May 13, 2026<\/p>\n
![\"Ayan](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1778644185Ayan-Farah_Portrait_Photo-by-Christofer-Wallentin-1230x692.png\")
left Ayan Farah. Photo: Christofer Wallentin. right Asmaa Jama. Photo: Tom Whitson<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom a country with the history that Somalia has, where a lot of film prints, visual and cultural material have been destroyed, it can feel hard to feel like you\u2019ve got an artistic lineage\u201d<\/p>\n
ArtReview sent a questionnaire to artists and curators exhibiting in and curating the various national pavilions of the 2026 Venice Biennale, the responses to which will be published daily in the leadup to and during the Venice Biennale, which runs from 9 May through 22 November.<\/p>\n
Ayan Farah, Asmaa Jama and Warsan Shire are representing Somalia; the pavilion is in the Palazzo Caboto.<\/p>\n
Celebrating Visions. Versace partners with ArtReview to share stories from the 2026 Venice Biennale.<\/p>\n
ArtReview Tell ArtReview what you plan to exhibit in Venice. What has influenced or inspired you?<\/strong><\/p>\n Ayan Farah<\/strong> I\u2019m planning to show an installation of two largescale, embroidered landscape paintings, wrapping around the walls of the room. The dye pigment is clay sourced in Somalia and porcelainlike pigment from sea shells collected while working in Scotland. These works will show alongside silk paintings depicting the light traveling through the windows in my home and studio. I wanted to reflect on the passing of time and the way time is recorded in nature and the environment.<\/p>\n Asmaa Jama<\/strong> The Somalia Pavillion will focus on saddexleey, a poetry form of threes, and will think about \u2018poetry as a living cultural form\u2019 creating a sensorial experience. I plan to exhibit moving image work, installation and visual artworks. My practice is fairly broad. I work across moving image, text, performance and painting. So I plan to show works that represent the scope of my practice. I\u2019m influenced and inspired by a lot of things: art, literature, cinema, music, archival histories and stories; myths and legends and things that might not be true, but are a good tale. I think my work as an artist is often about trying to work in that place where things are almost true. The tradition of magical realism, for example, really resonates with me. And there\u2019s also a big cinematic surrealist tradition that I\u2019m inspired by, like the work of Wendell B. Harris Jr.<\/p>\n AR In what ways, if at all, does your work relate to the theme of the Biennale exhibition, In Minor Keys?<\/strong><\/p>\n AF<\/strong> I\u2019m interested in those \u2018lower frequencies\u2019, the residual, material traces that remain after movement or loss and erasure. The pigments I make from shells, the attention to the body\u2019s passage through environments that\u2019s not always loudly proclaimed. The work is grounded in storytelling and information passed on by generations. It\u2019s a collective e\ufb00ort, from the sourcing of the material to works titles.<\/p>\n AJ<\/strong> I especially resonated with this idea of poetry, and this really beautiful image of islands, eddies, Glissant\u2019s garden. I\u2019m a poet, or I was a poet first. I think my work always comes from that place. In Minor Keys also makes me think of what\u2019s hidden but not yet been revealed, what\u2019s in the underneath, what\u2019s stirring and I think, my work is often speaking from the shadows or the margins.<\/p>\n AR<\/strong> Why is the Venice Biennale still important, if at all?<\/p>\n AF<\/strong> I think it\u2019s important as a place for encounters and visibility. It brings together geographies and practices that don\u2019t often meet in the same space. The attention the biennial brings can be used critically and shift narratives.<\/p>\n AJ<\/strong> I think, for any artist, it\u2019s a dream to be able to present your work on an international stage like that. I feel like my work and the work that I\u2019m interested in is international and works across borders and regions. It\u2019s important to hold that meeting place and to be good custodians of it, and to think also about who\u2019s not there, who\u2019s not present, and to find a way to lift those voices.<\/p>\n AR What role does a national pavilion play at a time of increasing confrontational nationalisms? Is it about expressing difference or commonality?<\/strong><\/p>\n AF<\/strong> It can appear that a national pavilion is reinforcing ideas of separation. But it\u2019s more of an open frame, particularly for Somalia. Histories and materials are already entangled across borders so it can also be a place where the idea of the \u201cnation\u201d can be made unstable.<\/p>\n AJ<\/strong> It\u2019s about expressing commonality. I was born in Denmark and raised in Britain, and I have worked with people all across the world, and I\u2019m from Somalia, so I think my understanding of the nation is an expanded one. Many people in the diasporas have an expanded understanding of what it means to belong to a place. Growing up in Europe and traveling revealed more to me about the places where I do feel that commonality and connection. And for me, that\u2019s always been, you know, in the diasporas, with the global Black diaspora, with the African continent as a whole. I try to imagine further than borders. I think as artists and people our duty is to find ways to dissolve that and to express the commonalities.<\/p>\n AR Who for you is the most important artist in any discipline that your country has produced?<\/strong><\/p>\n AF<\/strong> In the Somali poetic tradition, figures like Hadraawi have been very influential. They emerge from a culture where language, performance and memory are shared and constantly reshaped. Somalia doesn\u2019t have a long history of visual art so I\u2019m happy to see many new and up-and-coming artists finding a platform.<\/p>\n AJ<\/strong> I think the person that moved me the most certainly was the poet Hadraawi. His work really helped me connect with my parents in a different way, and it gave us a common language. And that common language was then the thing that I continued to chase and I then saw art and poetry as the common language to speak to people with, and I think that was very important for me as a young person.<\/p>\n I would be remiss to not mention Abdulkadir Said who made some very beautiful, poignant films. And I think sometimes, as someone in the African diaspora, I mean, especially from a country with the history that Somalia has, where a lot of film prints, visual and cultural material have been destroyed, it can feel hard to feel like you\u2019ve got an artistic lineage. The dream is to go back to an archive, and to reach back and see what came before. I think coming across his work and discovering his work was very powerful for me. I\u2019ve also had the chance to speak to him, and I think he\u2019s very generous with his time.<\/p>\n AR What is something you want people to know about your nation that they might not know already?<\/strong><\/p>\n AF<\/strong> Somalia is often called \u2018a nation of poets\u2019. We have a long history of intellectual, artistic, and poetic production that rarely gets international attention.<\/p>\n AJ<\/strong> Perhaps that it has the longest coastline in Africa? I think Somalia has an incredibly interesting history. You have five Somali territories, four periods of colonization. And also we had a very rich cultural scene, with Pan African exchanges of musical troupes touring Africa and beyond, and film festivals under the socialist government. Though it\u2019s, as you say Ayan, seen as a nation of poets, there\u2019s a rich history of other art forms too.\u00a0<\/p>\n It is also a country with a strong sense of shared identity, alongside meaningful regional differences expressed through culture, dialects, and lived experiences. This is something earlier generations understood well, and that younger people are now rediscovering.<\/p>\n And, to me, that coastline is a very interesting place. Lots of interesting ceremonies, lots of interesting rituals. I think the image of Somalia is often sort of focused on the nomadic camel herders, which is, of course, one story, but there\u2019s a really incredible history in the South.<\/p>\n AR Given that you are exhibiting in a national pavilion, is there something, a quality or an issue or attitude, that distinguishes the art of that nation from that of others, that makes it particular? Are there specific contexts that it responds to, or do you think that art is a universal language that goes beyond social, political, or geographic boundaries?<\/strong><\/p>\n AF<\/strong> Art responds to specific landscapes and ways of living, still I\u2019m not sure that generated ideas can be simplified into identity markers. What interests me more is how artists work within and across contexts, how they carry multiple histories and geographies at once. Especially for a country such as Somalia with one language and one religion but diverse environments and lived experiences.<\/p>\n AJ<\/strong> I do think that one of those contexts is the rupture of the Civil War. It\u2019s something that both artists, in Somalia and across the diaspora, are still living through the ramifications of. I\u2019m not saying that everyone\u2019s work responds to that, but I do think that when an event like that happens in a place, it alters everything. It\u2019s why I lean on speculative work and spirits and memory and myth and things that can\u2019t be known for sure. As well as the loss of life, there\u2019s something incredibly tragic about the loss of cultural memory, the loss of material culture. It causes a fracture. And I think, everything that comes after, whether it addresses it or not, is a response anyhow.\u00a0<\/p>\n AR What, other than art are you looking forward to seeing or doing while you\u2019re in Venice?<\/p>\n AF<\/strong> I\u2019m looking forward to walking a lot. Venice is the perfect city for that.<\/p>\n AJ<\/strong> I really want to get a masquerade mask. I find them fascinating, and I think the history of them, the fact that rich people would want to go into the town and not be seen, is very interesting. They also seem very ornate and detailed. And then, you know, in a dream world, I would love to see the island of Murano, because I think it\u2019s where the glass blowers used to be kept on the island. So people wouldn\u2019t steal their secrets about glass. I would love to see a foggy Venice, too. And I also want to see it at night, all the things I want to see are kind of eerie. In films there\u2019s always these beautiful shadows at night.<\/p>\n AR Could you give us a brief overview of your average working day while creating your presentation in Venice?<\/strong><\/p>\n AF<\/strong> I\u2019m in and out of the studio all days of the week as dyes need to mature and the material needs to dry. Four days a week, I get up at 6:30am to take a contemporary dance class. It helps me clear my mind and figure out that day\u2019s schedule. Afterwards I spend about 6 hours in the studio. grinding pigments, dying, painting, washing, sewing and sometimes embroidering.<\/p>\n AJ<\/strong> I usually wake up at noon. And I will eat some soft boiled eggs. I\u2019ll go for a little walk around my neighbourhood. I\u2019ll check my emails, see if I have anything I need to respond to, and then I\u2019ll have, like, a couple of sketchbooks. So I\u2019ll sit down and sketch ideas. I find it easier to like work in a cafe, which is sort of boring, but I think I just need like other people being there to hold me accountable. I might sketch installation ideas. I might do some research. I might read some papers or something that\u2019s interesting. I might watch a film, and I\u2019ll walk to my studio at Spike Island. I\u2019ll get a tea, and then I\u2019ll usually stay there for, like, four hours, five hours, just working. I tend to work when it\u2019s dark, so it\u2019s quite quiet. I tend to have a main focus of a medium, and all my ideas that I\u2019m having are channeled through that. At the moment, it\u2019s just been a lot of painting, some digital work. I might teach myself something from a tutorial, or make something in clay, prime a board, mix paint etc. And I listen to a lot of rap! If it\u2019s daytime I\u2019ll walk around the harbor. I like spotting all the new boats that have come in. I keep all my notes in my phone. I keep my to-do list there as well. I\u2019ll send voice notes to myself. Take pictures, sketch. I like to walk around with a small book that I\u2019ll never read. Then I\u2019ll go home, feeling a bit dissatisfied, but that\u2019s what gets me to come back.<\/p>\n AR Can art really change the world?<\/strong><\/p>\n AF<\/strong> Art can create a platform for reflection and dialogue and this can create a ripple that can lead to change.<\/p>\n AJ<\/strong> I think art can be used as a tool and has the power to change the world for sure. As an artist, it\u2019s about trying to speak the truth. Good art is able to inspire and move people and change their hearts. It\u2019s there to motivate, it\u2019s there to dream and imagine new worlds, it\u2019s there to grieve. So I think it can move people, who then can go on and change the world.<\/p>\n The 61st Venice Biennale runs 9 May through 22 November 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wednesday May 13, 2026 left Ayan Farah. Photo: Christofer Wallentin. right Asmaa Jama. 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