The Venice Art Biennale 2024 (April 20 - November 24) is titled Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere. The curator Adriano Pedrosa explains his theme: “Wherever you go and wherever you are you will always encounter foreigners—they/we are everywhere [...] and no matter where you find yourself, you are always truly, and deep down inside, a foreigner.” Yet, despite this fact, being foreign often has very negative connotations in our current times and immigration is a hotly debated topic.

Pedrosa’s biennale is a diverse and plural presentation of the art world ‘foreigners’. His show—spread across the Giardini and Arsenale venues—includes those who have been marginalised in art history: queer artists, indigenous artists, folk artists, outsider artists, and artists from the Global South in general. These choices also relate to Pedrosa’s personal experiences—he identifies as queer (and is the first openly queer curator of the Venice Art Biennale), and he comes from Brazil (again, the first curator of the biennale to come from Latin America) where the indigenous artist and the artista popular play important roles.

This year, there are 88 national pavilions taking part, as well as 30 official collateral events and many more exhibitions and events in and around the city. Several of these are taking Pedrosa’s theme as a starting point while others are carving out their narratives. In this series, STIRring 'Everywhere' in Venice, we bring you a curated selection of this burgeoning creative activity in the historic city of Venice. The mandate of this biennale, which aims to highlight under-represented artists and art histories, aligns with our philosophy of challenging the status quo and presenting powerful perspectives at STIR.

From insightful interviews and comprehensive reviews to bold opinion pieces and informative features, STIR will publish articles throughout the run of the biennale as well as produce video and social media content. Contributors include renowned writers and critics such as Charlotte Jansen, Julie Baumgardner, Hannah McGivern and STIR consulting editor Cleo Roberts-Komireddi, as well as curators such as Daehyung Lee and Mario D’Souza. STIR seeks to nurture creative thought, practice and discourse; the articles will include discussions with leading artists such as Shahzia Sikander, Yuko Mohri and Wael Shawky, among many others, and tackle hot topics such as climate change and ongoing socio-political challenges.

1. Waiting for Venice Art Biennale 2024: an ode to the inner foreigner

Foreigners Everywhere is split into two main sections: the Nucleo Storico (historical section), which will propose a new perspective on Modernism, exploring its developments across the Global South throughout the 20^th century and how it has been habilitated outside Europe; and the Nucleo Contemporaneo (contemporary section), offering a close examination of the relationship between art and activism, now more relevant than ever. This piece by art historian Eleonora Ghedini lays out the structure of the Biennale.

2. Nil Yalter wins the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Biennale

The artist Nil Yalter is one of two recipients of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 60th Venice Art Biennale, Managing Editor - Arts at STIR Ranjana Dave writes. Yalter’s career spans six decades, working in painting, drawing, video, sculpture and installation. Born in 1938, Yalter’s trajectory across space and time as a Turkish artist who migrated from Cairo to Istanbul, and finally to Paris, where she still lives, is much in line with curator Adriano Pedrosa’s migratory thesis in Foreigners Everywhere.

3. Politics Everywhere: conflict and diplomacy at the Venice Art Biennale

While Foreigners Everywhere is intended as a radically inclusive exhibition that celebrates migrants, outsiders, queer artists and Indigenous artists, the Venice Biennale is nonetheless a hotbed of fraught geopolitics. Russia is not taking part again this year due to the war in Ukraine and has loaned its pavilion to Bolivia, while Ruth Patir, the artist chosen to represent Israel in 2024, shut down her state-subsidised exhibition days before the Biennale opening in an act of protest over the war in Gaza. But history shows us that the international exhibition has long been a site of debate and protest, art writer and editor Hannah McGivern notes in this piece.

4. The real and the surreal converge in Wael Shawky's immersive narratives

The Alexandria-born artist Wael Shawky, who lives between Egypt and the United States, has been chosen to represent Egypt at the 60th Venice Art Biennale. Managing Editor - Arts at STIR Ranjana Dave writes about Drama 1882, a filmed rendition of an original musical play, created for the Biennale, which explores Egypt’s nationalist Urabi revolution in the 19th century against imperial and colonial influence.

5. Why all the art for the Croatia Pavilion is being hand-delivered

Channelling the experience of being a foreigner, the artist Vlatka Horvat mobilises an informal delivery network of friends and strangers in her show at the Venice Art Biennale, art historian Eleonora Ghedini tells us in this piece. Titled By The Means at Hand, unofficial couriers have been collecting, carrying across borders and delivering by hand the simple drawings made by the artists who have been invited to participate. This method reflects how people living outside their countries of origin often transport treasured items back home. Due to the performative nature of the project, the Croatian Pavilion will grow over time as more works are delivered by hand.

6. Bulgaria brings disquieting installation art to Venice Art Biennale 2024

The Bulgarian Pavilion explores the memories of survivors of political violence in communist Bulgaria from 1945 to 1989, in a new installation, The Neighbours, senior features writer at STIR, Manu Sharma, tells us. Created by the visual artist Krasimira Butseva, multimedia artist Julian Chehirian and Dr Lilia Topouzova, The Neighbours blends objects that are commonly associated with domestic life with items found in indentured labour camps, implying that the traumatic memories of state-sponsored persecution permeate every part of an inmate’s life, long after they have been released.

7. Artist Yuko Mohri on creating work with a focus on ecological consciousness

The artist Yuko Mohri seems to task her body with being a receptacle of the spatial energies of a given site. Her process of tuning in is intuitive and long-drawn. Based on the information she gathers from being in a place, she forages for the material components that will become part of a larger assembly. In an in-depth interview with STIR contributor Rosalyn D'Mello, Mohri discusses her artistic process, how she works in her studio, and the challenges she has faced in creating work for the Japan Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale.

8. A look at The European Cultural Centre’s massive forthcoming show in Venice

The European Cultural Centre (ECC) brings 200 artists from 51 countries together for the seventh edition of its biennale, Personal Structures, coinciding with the Venice Art Biennale 2024 in Venice, Italy. The non-profit organisation was formed in 2002 and is based in the Netherlands. It has an ongoing commitment to fostering cultural exchange and amplifying diverse voices in the arts. The theme for Personal Structures 2024 is Beyond Boundaries, an exploration of the complex network of interconnected identities and perspectives that shape the global cultural landscape, senior features writer at STIR, Manu Sharma, notes in this preview.

9. 'kith and kin' wins Australia its first-ever Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale

Archie Moore, a First Nations artist of Kamilaroi and Bigambul descent, is representing Australia with an installation titled kith and kin, which traces his family tree as far back in time as First Nations peoples are known to have lived on the continent. Thousands upon thousands of names, hand-drawn in white blackboard paint, cover the five-metre-high and 60-metre-long black walls and ceiling, writer and editor Hili Perlson notes in this review of the Australia Pavilion. On the ground, at the centre of the pavilion’s hard-edged rectangular space, a black pool of water engulfs a black steel structure. On the structure, hundreds of stacks of white documents contain information on 2,400 generations of ancestors, dating back 65,000 years. The installation won the Golden Lion for Best National Participation, Australia’s first-ever Venice accolade.

10. Foreigners Everywhere: Venice Biennale becomes a cradle of fraught purpose

"Curating the main exhibition at the Venice Art Biennale seems like a poisoned chalice; a career-defining moment for a curator but one that’s almost impossible to get right. Adriano Pedrosa’s attempt is brave, bold and has moments of brilliance, but as a whole, it is incoherent and incomplete—perhaps purposefully so,” says art writer and critic Charlotte Jansen.

11. The death of the solitary (white, male) artistic genius at the Venice Biennale

Away from the main exhibition "Foreigners Everywhere", STIR contributor Rosalyn D'Mello gives her first impressions of a selection of the national pavilions at the Venice Biennale 2024. "It felt like the axis of power was already shifting as historically marginalised artists and art forms occupied centre stage. The cult of the artist as an individual performing solitary labour in a studio and accessing his (white male) genius has lost its currency. Artists no longer have the privilege of divorcing themselves from political activism if they want their art to be relevant and to endure. I read these developments as welcome shifts towards radical collectivity and daring inclusivity; an embrace of art that has been fortified because of its existence outside the realm of institutionalised pedagogy," she says.

12. Personal Structures: Beyond Boundaries' makes a strong case for plurality

"It might be argued that plurality emerges as a core value from Personal Structures: Beyond Boundaries, inviting us to open ourselves to a rich variety of visions and experiences, and offering us the chance to rediscover the very concept of empathy," writes Eleonora Ghedini in her review of the European Cultural Centre's seventh edition of its biennale in Venice, which brings together 200 artists from 51 countries.

13. Africa's artistic kaleidoscope: Inaugural Pavilions at the Venice Biennale 2024

The Venice Biennale is renowned for its exclusivity, predominantly featuring Western countries and artists. Nonetheless, curators, artists and organisers have continually strived for international inclusivity. Ayesha Adonais traces some of the key moments in the Biennale's history that has promoted African art and artists and takes a look at what the four inaugural African national pavilions—Benin, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Senegal—are exhibiting in this year’s edition.

14.  Open your ears: Sound and sensorial installations at the Venice Biennale

The use of sound has been a recurring feature at this year’s 60th Venice Biennale and many artists incorporated it into their national pavilions' exhibitions in a variety of ways. Some used sound to tell personal or national stories, such as Poland, Panama and Egypt, while others used music and sound to explore aspects of their culture that have previously been underrepresented, such as Saudi Arabia and the Nordic pavilion. Holly Howe picks a selection of countries with particularly memorable acoustic presentations.

15. Venice is a victim of the climate crisis: how is the Art Biennale reacting?

In Venice, a city that has been sinking for well over a hundred years, a discussion around the climate crisis feels urgent—if not a little too late. But this year, references to the topic of climate change and the stress of the seas were abundant, from official pavilions, collateral exhibitions and off-site conferences. The Venice Biennale has also made efforts to be entirely carbon neutral and this year the organisation has provided carbon-reduction guidelines for visitors (i.e. taking a train to Venice instead of a plane) as part of their on-going efforts to reduce the event’s footprint. Julie Baumgardner takes a look at some of these efforts and asks: is there still hope for the environment and can the art world actually make a difference?

16. Navigating the fog: inspiring multimedia installations in Venice

Fifty years ago, the Korean artist Nam June Paik's 1973 video masterpiece Global Groove offered a visionary look at how digital media can transcend artistic boundaries to address political and social themes, suggesting that art can play a pivotal role in shaping narratives and fostering dialogue. Today, despite immense technological advancement, we continue to face political, social and cultural fragmentation, as can be seen in the latest edition of the Venice Art Biennale and beyond. Here, Lee Daehyung explores three exhibitions in Venice that use video, sound and design to encourage a deeper appreciation of our shared humanity.

17. Debt in Venice: Christoph Büchel’s quietly monumental show 'Monte di Pietà'

The often controversial Swiss-Icelandic artist Christoph Büchel has returned to Venice with the exhibition Monte Di Pietà, a work of ambitious scale and in tune with Adriano Pedrosa's 60th Venice Art Biennale 2024, Foreigners Everywhere. The site-specific exhibition at the Fondazione Prada tackles the subjects of debt and value. "There is a constant dichotomy between the settings in the exhibition and the value aspect of its surroundings. From the garish hoardings plastered over the entrance to the parasitic assemblage of objects huddled like squatters threatening almost to reach out and eject the onlooker from every room, Büchel imbues debt with an intrusive physical presence that seamlessly connects the past of Monte de Pietà with the future of NFTs, 24/7 news culture and ongoing wars," says Huma Kabakcı in her review of the show.

18. In Venice, Latin American artists highlight historically silenced voices

In this piece by Mercedes Ezquiaga, STIR profiles five contemporary Latin American artists who draw on their Indigenous roots to inform their practice. They often create within community settings, in a departure from the individual exceptionalism of Eurocentric art. Many of these artists also work with nature and ecology, sourcing from ancestral forms and practices as a mode of cultural resistance. “The refocusing, preservation and dissemination of roots and traditions not only becomes a trigger for the artwork itself but also creates a means by which marginalised voices can finally be heard and celebrated,” Ezquiaga writes.

19. ‘Repeat After Me’ at the Venice Biennale invites audiences to consider the horrors of war

The Polish pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2024 recounts the trauma of the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine in a film-based work, with Ukrainian civilians as its protagonists. In Repeat After Me II, they recount the sounds of the guns, bombs and aircraft that drove them from their homes, forcing them to seek refuge across Europe. STIR discusses Open Group’s work and the changing political tides in Europe, in a video conversation with Anton Varga, member of the Open Group and Marta Czyż, the pavilion’s curator. Ranjana Dave writes, “At a time when it is imperative to imagine “community” across national borders, the Ukrainian presence in Poland’s national pavilion reflects that pressing need. But what would it take for the Biennale to recognise the Ukrainian refugee crisis in deeper and meaningful ways, the artists wonder?”

20. Exploring Portugal Pavilion: Collective work within a 'Creole Garden'

The Portuguese Pavilion presents the Greenhouse, an interdisciplinary, intersectional and political look at how ecology, activism and oppression have intersected in the history and present of modernity. Greenhouse is a collaboration between the artist Mónica de Miranda, researcher Sónia Vaz Borges and choreographer Vânia Gala. The rhizomatic installation is divided into four ‘actions’: Garden, Living Archive, Schools and Assemblies. Consulting Editor (Arts) Beth Citron interviews Sónia Vaz Borges as she outlines the message grounding the Garden, an installation that “speaks to historical acts by enslaved people, who would tend diverse soil as an act of resistance, subsistence and gathering that countered plantation culture.”

21. Manal AlDowayan reflects on Saudi womanhood at the Venice Biennale

In this video conversation with STIR’s Consulting Editor (Arts) Cleo Roberts-Komireddi, artist Manal AlDowayan discusses her work Shifting Sands: A Battle Song, made for the Saudi Arabia Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale. AlDowayan seeks to offer a complex and nuanced perspective on Saudi women, moving away from mainstream media portrayals that consider them suppressed. She draws on workshops held with women in Saudi Arabia, incorporating their responses into her work. Al Dowayan remarks that her installation is intended as a “performative act of solidarity”, humanising the women behind the headlines.

22. Artist Shahzia Sikander on creating artworks that inspire discourse

Artist Shahzia Sikander discusses her exhibition Collective Behavior in this video interview with STIR’s Consulting Editor (Arts) Cleo Roberts-Komireddi. Presented at the Palazzo Soranzo Van Axel in Venice as a collateral exhibition of the 60th Venice Biennale, the exhibition is the first major retrospective of Sikander’s work. It includes over 30 works in mediums ranging from sculptures, paintings, mosaics, digital animation, print and miniatures. Sikander questions prevalent narratives about women, Islamic art and colonialism in her works, seeking to spark cultural discourse and challenge Western art history.

23. Ruth Patir's crushingly candid work on the burdens of the female body

The Israel Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, originally slated to showcase artist Ruth Patir's (M)otherland, was closed in the absence of a ceasefire and hostage deal amidst the Israel-Gaza war. Patir, with curators Mira Lapidot and Tamar Margalit, made the difficult decision to keep the pavilion closed, leaving the exhibition inaccessible until a ceasefire deal is reached. The exhibition is a staunchly feminist look at women’s bodies, fertility, autonomy and protest. Over five video installations, Keening, Petah Tikva (Waiting), Intake, Retrieval Stories, and Motherland, Patir 3D animates ancient female figurines to represent herself and the women around her. The latter four installations are inspired by her medical journey after being diagnosed with a gene mutation. Keening depicts the figurines congregating and walking together, expressing grief and rage at a location based on a real intersection in Tel Aviv, where, since early 2023, large numbers of Israelis have been protesting against their current far-right government.