Canada pavilion asks who lives with nature

Canada’s pavilion at the Venice Biennale is about plants. But really it’s about borders, ownership, and who gets to feel at home in “nature.” This week, Montreal artist Abbas Akhavan opened “Entre chien et loup,” a work that turns the Canada Pavilion into a greenhouse-like pond filled with giant water lilies. The move matters because the Venice Biennale is never just an art show — it is also a stage where countries present themselves. And this year that stage is especially tense. ### What is Canada actually showing? Akhavan has transformed the glass-and-brick pavilion into what the National Gallery of Canada calls a monumental Wardian case — basically a 19th-century glass container used to move plants around the world. Inside, the temperature and humidity are tuned to feel Amazonian, warm mist drifts through the air, and part of the floor becomes an above-ground pool. At the center sit Victoria water lilies, floating on dark water. (cbc.ca) ### Why these lilies? Because the plant carries two histories at once. One is ancient — the water lily family is more than 100 million years old. The other is imperial and much newer. The genus was named for Queen Victoria, and the plant became a Victorian-era spectacle, especially after its display at London’s 1851 Great Exhibition. Akhavan is using that collision — deep time versus empire’s short grab for ownership — as the work’s hinge. (cbc.ca) ### Where did the plants come from? The details matter here because the installation is itself a story of movement. Seeds for the Victoria cruziana lilies came from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, then were germinated at the Orto Botanico di Padova in Italy before being moved to Venice to mature in the Canadian pavilion. So even the living material in the show has crossed institutions, borders, and climates — exactly the kind of managed circulation the piece wants you to notice. (cbc.ca) ### So what question is Akhavan asking? Not “aren’t plants beautiful?” The sharper question is who gets access to nature, who gets to protect it, and who gets shut out from it. Akhavan’s work keeps circling the way landscapes get domesticated, classified, and displayed by powerful institutions. A garden can look peaceful, but it can also work like a map of control — deciding what belongs, what gets moved, and who is allowed inside. (gallery.ca) ### Why does that hit differently now? Because this Biennale opened in a climate of war, migration tension, and climate anxiety. The larger exhibition, “In Minor Keys,” was shaped around overlooked perspectives, and the national pavilions are being read through that lens whether they want to be or not. In that setting, Canada’s quieter plant installation stops reading as neutral scenery. It starts reading as a question about refuge, stewardship, and exclusion. (cbc.ca) ### What is going on around the Biennale? A lot of turmoil. The 61st Venice Biennale opened amid protests and boycott pressure tied to Israel’s and Russia’s participation. The awards jury quit, so there will be no traditional Golden Lions this year; visitors will vote instead, with winners announced on Nov. 22. That means the usual machinery of prestige has been scrambled, and every national pavilion now sits inside a much louder argument about representation itself. (cbc.ca) ### Why is the Canada Pavilion such a loaded place? Because Canada’s pavilion is not just rented wall space. Canada has participated in the Biennale since 1952 and has had its own pavilion in the Giardini since 1958. The country sends official representation through the National Gallery of Canada, which makes the building part artwork, part cultural diplomacy. When Akhavan turns that pavilion into a living ecosystem, he is also messing with the idea that a nation can cleanly present itself at all. (usnews.com) ### Bottom line The Canadian entry works because it does not yell. It builds a damp, beautiful space and then makes that beauty feel unstable. A giant lily pad becomes a reminder that nature is never just “out there” — it is named, transported, fenced, financed, and fought over. In Venice this year, that lands as both an artwork and a political argument. (cbc.ca) (gallery.ca)