The Miracle Pavilion
A different perspective on the politics of the Venice Biennale
This is the story of NZƎNDA, the Cameroon Pavilion at the 61st Biennale Arte in Venice. The miracle pavilion.
Venice Biennales are always controversial, this year particularly so. From the entire jury resigning, to strikes and protests shutting down the Giardini, water-skis and a surprise DJ set by Bjork, In Minor Keys is a very loud Biennale. Which is somewhat ironic, a little sad in fact, as in the late Koyo Kouoh’s curatorial vision ‘the minor keys refuse orchestral bombast and goose-step military marches and come alive in the quiet tones, the lower frequencies, the hums, the consolations of poetry”.
Yet another Biennale opened last week. The controversy and outrage caused by the presence of countries committing crimes against humanity is understandable and the protests necessary. But the risk is overlooking the ongoing struggles of many countries and artists whose presence at the Biennale is always a challenge, because of structural barriers, lack of investment and resources, limited access to the global art market and the profound inequality of visa regimes, which systematically discriminate against artists and curators from low and middle income countries. You may well be invited at the Biennale banquet, but there is no real seat for you: no pavilion, no money, no visas. African countries and artists are amongst the most affected, and until very recently pretty absent from the Biennale landscape.
Yet if you were walking home along the Venetian calli late on Friday night you were probably coming from THE afterparty of the week, at the opening of the Cameroon Pavilion in a very hard to find location in Cannaregio. And if you have missed it, too bad. It was incredible.
What made it even more incredible is that Cameroon had to change their pavilion site four days before the opening and the site they found was, in a very Venetian way, lovely but pretty damp and rather bare. No running water, and that was just the start.
For context, most European countries, the US, Australia, Brazil and other major economies have their own permanent pavilions at the Giardini which they manage and pay for: others can afford to secure a prime space in the Arsenale through a combination of cultural diplomacy, government funding and (increasingly) private sponsorship. Everyone else is left to fend for themselves in rather creative but also challenging ways, occupying schools, parks and gardens, crumbling palazzos and disused shipyards.
So did the Cameroon team, with a very tight budget, no PR agency and the wrong address on the Biennale listing. But what it did have, was people: the curator and artists but also friends, collaborators and a shared determination to bring the pavilion to life. The curator Beya Gille Gacha had a beautiful vision for NZƎNDA – The Door, that spoke even more beautifully to Koyo’s In Minor Keys: “A gesture of remembrance, presence, and commitment. An offering from the heart of a people who carry in their art the silence of volcanoes and the knowledge of their ancestor’. Koyo was Cameroonian, after all.
All the artists - Salimata Diop, Zora Snake, Jail Time Records, Bienvenue Fotso and Neals Niat - were present, with their work, sounds, hands and souls, prepared to do whatever it takes to turn the vision into a reality. The community came together around the artists to defy the odds and turn the empty and damp rooms into the most beautiful space the Biennale has ever seen. We called friends of friends, sons and daughters, local heroes and distant relatives: together we plastered and painted, we removed the debris, we sourced and connected several meters of HDMI cables, we shared contact details of others who could help. They called their friends. We installed against all odds. All of it. And the space was no longer empty or damp. The people made it their own.
Someone drew a quick map with a pin and shared it in a post. Someone else brought prosecco in large quantities, it is Venice after all. There were no press releases. We just asked you all to come and join us.
And you did, oh you really did. On the night, we talked and we listened to The Sounds we come from, Where sound arrives. We watched movement on the screens that were bare walls only two days before, we called Koyo’s name and we performed to her frequencies.
And then we danced the night away, exhausted and elated, the calle outside bursting with people and joy. Because being in Venice is not a given, so we seized the day and made the night our own. ‘The Cameroon National Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale is a vision to be inhabited. A breath, a beginning. A shared dream now taking shape’ - Beya Gille Gacha, curator of NZƎNDA, the miracle Cameroon Pavilion at the 61st Art Biennale.
The real miracle perhaps is that this is still happening at the heart of ageing Europe: while the Venice Art Biennale is still an opportunity, an opening, for many artists and curators, this particular version of the ‘global stage’ feels increasingly small. The future we experienced on Friday night will happen elsewhere, away from the tight borders of Europe. In the words of Kenji Maghoma, “Perspective matters. If you only view from one centre, everything else looks like the periphery”. And the centre is shifting.