In Venice, sound becomes a vessel for memory, migration, and the unfinished story of a nation.
15 April 2026
Curator Bana Kattan. Photo by Dahlia Dandashi. Image Courtesy of National Pavilion UAE
In Venice, where water carries every footstep into echo, the UAE Pavilion at the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia leans into the act of listening. Titled ‘Washwasha’, a word that translates from Arabic as “whispering,” the 2026 presentation, curated by Bana Kattan, proposes a subtle yet resonant shift in how we encounter contemporary art from the Gulf. Here, the spectacle often associated with national pavilions gives way to an attentiveness shaped by sound, intimacy, and the fragile persistence of memory.
Tala Nassar. Assistant Curator. Image courtesy of the curator.
The exhibition gathers six artists whose practices span geographies, generations, and media. Mays Albaik, Jawad Al Malhi, Farah Al Qasimi, Alaa Edris, Lamya Gargash, and Taus Makhacheva form a constellation rather than a chorus, each voice distinct yet threaded through a shared inquiry into how sound operates as a carrier of lived experience. Their works unfold against the backdrop of a nation defined less by fixity than by movement. Migration, transience, and enduring ties to the land are not treated as abstractions but as audible conditions that shape everyday life in the UAE.
Lamya Gargash. Image courtesy of the artist.
What emerges is not a single narrative but a layered soundscape. In ‘Washwasha’, listening becomes a method of historical reconstruction. Oral storytelling traditions, poetry circles, and grassroots broadcasting initiatives are positioned alongside contemporary technologies, suggesting that the act of transmitting voice has always been central to cultural self-representation in the region. Yet the exhibition resists nostalgia. Instead, it asks what happens when these forms of collective listening are reconfigured through increasingly digital, global, and accelerated infrastructures.
Farah Al Qasimi. Photo by Carolyne Loreé Teston. Image courtesy of the artist.
The pavilion itself becomes an instrument. Designed by Büro Koray Duman Architects, the spatial arrangement guides visitors through a sequence of acoustic environments, from zones of close listening to areas saturated with overlapping noise. This choreography of sound mirrors the conditions it seeks to explore. The UAE is presented not as a static cultural entity but as a site of constant negotiation, where voices intersect, dissolve, and reassemble. The architecture amplifies this condition, making the visitor acutely aware of their own position within a field of sonic exchange.
Mays Albaik.Image Courtesy of 421 Arts Campus.
There is a quiet radicality in this approach. National pavilions have historically been tasked with representing identity in legible, often visual terms. ‘Washwasha’ instead foregrounds the intangible. Sound, after all, cannot be easily contained. It leaks, reverberates, and disappears. In privileging the ephemeral, the UAE Pavilion gestures toward a form of identity that is similarly fluid. It acknowledges the impossibility of capturing a nation in a single image or narrative, opting instead for a multiplicity that is felt rather than seen.
Alaa Edris. Image courtesy of the artist.
Each artist contributes to this unfolding in distinct ways. Albaik’s engagement with language and displacement situates the body as both a site of translation and a receiver of sound. Gargash’s attention to overlooked interiors evokes the quiet residues of social change, spaces where echoes linger long after their origins have faded. Al Qasimi’s interplay between image and music reflects the fragmented hierarchies of digital culture, while Edris approaches sound as a mapping tool, tracing the contours of urban and social environments. Al Malhi and Makhacheva extend these inquiries into broader historical and geopolitical terrains, complicating notions of belonging and authenticity.
Jawad Al Malhi. Image courtesy of the artist.
Yet it is in the spaces between these practices that the exhibition finds its most compelling register. The notion of whispering suggests proximity, a closeness that demands attention. It is an act that resists amplification, privileging the intimate exchange between speaker and listener. In Venice, a city saturated with visual excess during the Biennale, this insistence on quiet becomes a form of resistance.
The timing is also significant. The UAE Pavilion marks its ninth participation in the International Art Exhibition, a milestone that reflects both continuity and evolution. Since its inception, the pavilion has sought to position Emirati and UAE-based artists within global conversations, while remaining attentive to local contexts. ‘Washwasha’ continues this trajectory, but with a renewed sensitivity to the complexities of representation in a rapidly shifting world.
Taus Makhacheva. Photo by Anastasia Ivanova. Image courtesy of the artist.
Beyond the exhibition itself, the accompanying publication and public programming extend these dialogues, offering multiple entry points into the themes of sound, memory, and transformation. The longstanding Venice Internship program, which has supported over 300 participants, underscores the pavilion’s commitment to cultivating future generations of cultural practitioners. This investment in people as much as in projects reinforces the idea that culture is not only produced but sustained through networks of learning and exchange.
In the end, ‘Washwasha’ does not seek to be definitive. It is an invitation to listen differently, to attune oneself to the subtle frequencies that shape both individual and collective experience. In a biennial landscape often driven by spectacle, the UAE Pavilion offers something quieter but no less profound. It reminds us that the most enduring stories are not always the loudest ones. Sometimes, they are carried in whispers, across water, waiting to be heard.
The exhibition will be on view at the Sale d’Armi in the Arsenale at the Venice Biennale, from 9 May until 11 November 2026.
