Ukraine pavilion at Venice Biennale

Ukraine’s pavilion became one of the most visible national presentations during the press preview of the 61st Venice Biennale in early May, according to reporting from the Kyiv Independent and official Biennale materials. The exhibition, titled “Security Guarantees,” centers on Zhanna Kadyrova’s concrete sculpture “Origami Deer,” which is shown in public space and in a companion installation at the Arsenale. La Biennale di Venezia says the 61st edition, titled “In Minor Keys,” opened to the public on May 9 after a pre-opening on May 6, 7 and 8. The show runs in Venice through Nov. 22. ### Why was Ukraine so prominent during the preview days? The Kyiv Independent reported on June 1 that Ukraine “takes center stage” during the Biennale’s opening days, describing dense crowds and sustained visitor traffic around the Ukrainian presentation. Curator Masha Isserlis told the outlet that organizers had only “several seconds within the attention span of the visitor” to catch people as they moved through the event. (kyivindependent.com) May 7 was one of the preview dates cited by both La Biennale and the Kyiv Independent. La Biennale says the pre-opening took place on May 6, 7 and 8, before the public opening on May 9. The Kyiv Independent placed visitors at the Ukraine Pavilion at the Arsenale during those preview days and described lines, rain and heavy foot traffic across the Biennale grounds. ### What is the work visitors were stopping for? (kyivindependent.com) Zhanna Kadyrova’s “Origami Deer” is the central image of the Ukrainian pavilion. The Kyiv Independent described the work as a concrete deer suspended from the crane of a parked truck with orange lifting straps, an arrangement that made some visitors pause to determine whether they were seeing an installation in progress or the work itself. (labiennale.org) La Biennale says the sculpture was created in 2019 for a public park in Pokrovsk, Donetsk Oblast, on the site of a dismantled Soviet jet. In August 2024, as the front line approached Pokrovsk and civilians began evacuating, Kadyrova, Leonid Marushchak and a team dismantled the work and moved it to safety, according to the Biennale’s project page. ### Why is the pavilion called “Security Guarantees”? La Biennale says the project refers directly to the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, under which Ukraine gave up the nuclear weapons left on its territory after the Soviet collapse in exchange for security assurances from the United States, Britain and Russia. (kyivindependent.com) The official project page links that history to the movement of the sculpture from eastern Ukraine to Venice. Tetyana Berezhna, listed by La Biennale as commissioner of the pavilion and identified by the Kyiv Independent as Ukraine’s culture minister and commissioner for the project, tied the theme to the present war. (labiennale.org) In a May 7 Kyiv Independent article, she asked: “Are these really security guarantees?” ### Where exactly is Ukraine’s pavilion this year? La Biennale says Ukraine’s project is split across two locations. The “Deer” is installed in public space, while a multi-channel video installation in the Arsenale documents the sculpture’s journey through Ukraine and Europe. (labiennale.org) The Kyiv Independent reported that the Ukrainian pavilion, unlike in some previous editions, occupies space in both the Giardini and the Arsenale, the Biennale’s two main sites. (labiennale.org) That layout helped place the work in the path of press-preview visitors moving between the exhibition’s central venues. ### What happens next for visitors? The 61st Venice Biennale is open from May 9 through Nov. 22, 2026, at the Giardini, Arsenale and other sites across Venice, La Biennale says. (labiennale.org) Ukraine’s pavilion remains on view at the Arsenale and Giardini under the title “Security Guarantees,” with Kadyrova as exhibitor and Ksenia Malykh and Leonid Marushchak listed as curators. (labiennale.org) (kyivindependent.com)