MÓNICA DE MIRANDA, SÓNIA VAZ BORGES, VÂNIA GALA: THE PORTUGAL PAVILION AT THE VENICE BIENNALE

The artists will create a “Creole Garden” in Palazzo Franchetti, referencing private plots tended by enslaved people as acts of resistance and survival—an antithesis of the monocultural plantation. Densely planted and richly biodiverse, the “Creole Garden” fosters a discursive space of liberation, possibility and multiplicity. Created by artists from different backgrounds—visual art, history, and choreography—the project will enact a philosophy of participation, collaboration and interdisciplinary solidarity.

Connecting ideas of ecology, decolonisation, diaspora and migration, the artist-curators will construct a garden of plants native to African countries, which will grow in the palace’s main hall throughout the exhibition period. The project proposes soil as a vector of decolonial and ecological engagement, capable of both sustaining growth, as well as archiving traces of historical violence, connecting past, present and future, the politics of the land, history, body and identity.

The garden will stage a sound installation, sculptures, dance/performance, workshops and participatory events. Together, these components will create a transdisciplinary space of experimentation, encounter and collective possibility. Greenhouse will be grounded in four actions: Garden (Installation, Space, Time); Living Archive (Sound, Movement, Performance), School (Education, History, Revolution); Assemblies (Public, Communities and Publication).

Greenhouse marks two celebrations: the centenary of Amílcar Cabral (1924–73), a Bissau-Guinean anticolonial leader and agronomist crucial to the country’s independence in 1973, and the 50th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution which deposed Portugal’s dictatorship on 25 April 1974. Emphasising the composite histories and identities that emerged from colonialism and the liberation struggles, Greenhouse proposes actions that enact radical and decolonial solidarities, and challenge monocultural norms of nation, knowledge, and agriculture.

The Pavilion unfixes hierarchical conventions, encouraging fluid modes of artistic production grounded not in binaries of theory and practice, artist and curator, but in their interconnection. The project transforms the exhibition space into a space for action and dialogue. Rather than a static experience, it proposes the creation of a “living archive.” The garden will be activated across the exhibition period, becoming a place of collective action and care, of multiple possibilities and pedagogy.

Conceived for the first time by three African-Portuguese women, the Portugal Pavilion proposes the emergence of various choreographies based on encounters and collaborations between public, communities and artists, in resonance with the theme of the 2024 Venice Biennale, Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere.