Fiona Pardington is representing Aotearoa New Zealand; the pavilion is at the Istituto Provinciale per l\u2019Infanzia Santa Maria della Piet\u00e0 di Venezia.<\/p>\n
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Photo: Duncan Cole<\/p>\n
ArtReview Tell ArtReview what you plan to exhibit in Venice. What has influenced or inspired you?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fiona Pardington Taharaki Skyside is a body of large photographic portraits of taxidermy museum specimens of native birds from Aotearoa and the Southern Ocean. I am influenced by my M\u0101ori whakapapa (genealogy) and in our culture birds are messengers from the spirit world. They are taonga (culture treasures) and their dignity and spiritual being is inalienable. I\u2019m rehabilitating them from the colonial vitrine. Because it\u2019s Italy I was also inspired by Dante\u2019s Divine Comedy [c.\u20091321], the idea of spiritual messengers guiding the artist through otherworldly realms, and the whole idea of Purgatory being an island in the Southern Hemisphere tickled me. It resonates with the liminality of Aotearoa, inviting viewers to contemplate the thresholds between the physical and metaphysical.<\/p>\n
AR In what ways (if at all) does your work relate to the theme of the Biennale exhibition, In Minor Keys?<\/p>\n
FP My work is full of nested marginalities, peripheralities and precariats: indigeneity, vulnerable species, the relationship of our small archipelago down at the bottom of the Pacific to the rest of the world. These are all minor keys in the big symphony of the world.<\/p>\n
AR Why is the Venice Biennale still important, if at all?\u00a0<\/p>\n
FP Well, for a start it\u2019s Venice. It\u2019s a baroque pearl, all sex, death and myth. How can that not be an impressive backdrop? I can see how some might see it as slightly clich\u00e9 and out of touch, but the Biennale creates its own gravity field. It feels like you\u2019ve made it, even if that\u2019s just subjective. I\u2019m a decadent soul and I like having my ego stroked by the Establishment on occasion. It remains a legendary crucible for dialogue.<\/p>\n
AR What role does a national pavilion play at a time of increasing confrontational nationalisms? Is it about expressing difference or commonality?<\/p>\n
FP It\u2019s what you make of it, whether that be life raft, flag of convenience, or propaganda platform. I appreciate that in many cases having a national pavilion elevates deserving artists to visibility that they wouldn\u2019t otherwise have. Most artists tend to be citizens of the world in the first place.<\/p>\n
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Fiona Pardington, K\u0101k\u0101 kura, Nestor meridionalis septentrionalis, colour morph, Rangataua, Tongariro, 2025, pigment inks on Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag, 176 \u00d7 140 cm. Courtesy the artist and collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (OR. 001127)<\/p>\n
AR Who, for you, is the most important artist (in any discipline) that your country has produced?\u00a0<\/p>\n
FP I don\u2019t think I could give a meaningful answer to that even if I wanted to. That kind of \u2018importance\u2019 is entirely subjective and I admire them all cumulatively for different facets. I don\u2019t rank them. I wouldn\u2019t know what to compare them to. To privilege one voice over another would be to diminish the collective resonance of our artistic community.<\/p>\n
AR What is something you want people to know about your nation that they might not know already?<\/p>\n
FP We keep our best secrets. You\u2019ll have to come and find out for yourself.<\/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?<\/p>\n
FP We contain multitudes. It\u2019s not really a fair question. A lot of Aotearoa New Zealand artists work in a completely international or postinternet idiom, including some M\u0101ori artists. But even then, their manawhenua (ancestral relationship with the land) is inalienable. We have a British colonial history and a multicultural history, but for me that M\u0101ori identity, which is really the identity of many different iwi (tribes), is within that, central and apart. That interconnectedness of things and worldview is as vital to my work as the more European aesthetic elements are.<\/p>\n
AR What, other than art, are you looking forward to seeing \u2013\u00a0or doing \u2013\u00a0while you are in Venice?<\/p>\n
FP Absorbing the atmosphere goes without saying \u2013 the art, the architecture, the people \u2013 and engaging with other artists from around the world. I\u2019ll be spending a lot more time at the Museo del Vetro, Murano, as research in preparation for a still-life exhibition. And I\u2019ll be spending as much time as I can zipping around on vaporetti exploring; more time looking at surrealist paintings at Peggy G\u2019s; Antique markets, church and charity shops \u2013 if anyone can recommend where to go.<\/p>\n
AR Could you give us a brief overview of your average working day while creating your presentation in Venice?<\/p>\n
FP A lot of travelling between museum collections in Aotearoa and Australia. Rise early, but not too early. Coffee. Arrive with all of my equipment, get ushered in through the side door. The birds have been taken out of their storage or display and are waiting. I have a little korero (talk) with them, thanking them. I set up lights, camera and backdrop as quickly as I can, take my pictures, pack it all up again and then usually stay up late at night scrutinising the results on my laptop.<\/p>\n
AR Can art really change the world?<\/p>\n
FP Art has always influenced change in the world by bringing attention to issues, but it tends to be most effective when the aesthetic, escapism or storytelling comes first. An audience needs to be seduced into dialogue. Hitting them over the head with it or raging at them is usually counterproductive.<\/p>\n
The\u00a061st Venice Biennale<\/a>\u00a0runs 9 May through 22 November 2026<\/p>\n ArtReview<\/a>Venice Biennale 2026<\/a>March 11, 2026artreview.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI\u2019m a decadent soul and I like having my ego stroked by the Establishment on occasion\u201d ArtReview sent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":324171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-324170","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}