Canada's entry at Venice Biennale shows how glass beads shaped the modern world

Over the years, 60 Canadian artists have won the honour of showing their work in a small, angular, wood-and-glass pavilion that sits on the end of the Venice lagoon.

But this is the first time an artist has draped the pavilion in luscious strings of cobalt-blue beads that shift and soften the outline of the building.

The beads provide the opening glance of Trinket by Hamilton-born, Paris-based artist Kapwani Kiwanga, Canada's representative at this year's Venice Biennale, the world's most prestigious art show.

In her exhibit, Kiwanga literally and metaphorically connects the dots — glass bead by glass bead — of trade that radiated out around the globe from Venice, once one of Europe's most important ports, and the impact that had.

For centuries, the beads, called conterie, were produced on the nearby glassmaking island of Murano and used as currency and for barter, taking off in the 16th century as European traders and explorers expanded their global reach.

"These little, tiny, miniscule units of glass shaped our modern and postmodern world," said Kiwanga from her studio in Rome before the opening of the Venice Biennale on April 20.

"I'm interested in how materials can be documents themselves of human, social and political interaction."

As chance would have it, the very same year she was selected to represent Canada in the Biennale, commissioned by the National Gallery of Canada, she's been living in Italy as an artist-in-residence at the beautiful Villa Medici, part of the French Academy, near the top of the Spanish Steps in Rome.

Interest in power imbalances

The conterie, from the Portuguese word "to count," were exchanged for everything from tropical wood to gold that was brought to Europe and used to construct and adorn everything from chairs in homes to soaring cathedrals.

In the South American and African communities the beads were traded, though, they disrupted local economies and social cohesion, says Kiwanga, whose work is concerned primarily with power imbalances, from the geopolitical to the institutional.

Inside the pavilion, the walls are adorned with more conterie, these ones inlaid with different raw materials that were once exchanged for them — Pernambuco redwood from Brazil, gold leaf and metal. Four sculptures of the same material inlaid with beadwork form physical and narrative points of contact.

Kiwanga, who is now in her mid-40s, grew up in downtown Hamilton in a working-class family with roots in Tanzania. Her mother was the one who exposed her to art — from the mosaics at Hamilton City Hall and paintings and sculpture at the Art Gallery of Ontario to museums when they travelled — while her family encouraged her to value personal expression over the pursuit of wealth.

"I've never had this pressure of financial success, and that defined for me quite early what freedom meant: being able to choose what I wanted to do," she said. "It was a great gift."

Early schooling

The idea to become an artist didn't come until her mid-20s, after she studied anthropology and comparative religion at McGill University in Montreal and worked for a few years as a documentary filmmaker in Scotland.

"I found it a bit too limiting for me," she said of film, and the idea of not being able to have a full say in the final cut. "But I didn't really know what art was, so it was really just this open question: could this be a space, and what could I make of it?"

Kiwanga won a small scholarship to attend the Beaux Arts de Paris for two years, followed by another two-year postgraduate program in the north of France. Those four years "of exploring," as she calls them, convinced her to make a go of it as an artist.

The choice has paid off, both in terms of freedom and recognition. Kiwanga has exhibited at top galleries around the world and won international prizes, including France's prestigious Prix Marcel Duchamp, which came with 35,000 euros for her installation Flowers for Africa at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Canada's Sobey Art Award and the U.S.-based Frieze Artist Award.

Before becoming an artist, she was tempted to become a scholar, but wanted a wider audience for her work. Still, the drive to go deep is core to her art.

"I just ask myself a question and then I say, 'Well, who's thought about this as well?' and then read people who have dedicated decades to research an area, and then ask more specific questions," she said.

What emerges from those questions, and the creative shaping that follows, are spacious, abstract works that elegantly synthesize complex histories and ideas.

They take the form of everything from wafting, diaphanous, desert-coloured sheets and gleaming sculptures to pairing colours used by industrial designers to create moods or control movement in offices, psychiatric wards and prisons.

In Trinket, as well as in an exhibit that was part of a group show at the last Venice Biennale, Kiwanga often hones in on a particular aspect or material related to colonial and mercantile economies. That could be containers, sisal, sand and glass, as well as floral arrangements she recreated from diplomatic dinners that were part of African nations' bid for independence.

In other exhibits, she's explored racialized surveillance, featuring police floodlights melted down into tiny beads to form a massive metallic veil, inspired by the writing of American scholar Simone Browne.

'There are many layers of my person'

While race is at times part of her work, it's one of many aspects related to power imbalance that she explores. She says being the first Black female artist to show at the Canadian pavilion in Venice doesn't hold much meaning for her.

"If it's important for other people to [use] these labels and be interested in the firsts, then that's fine, it's their narrative," she said. "Just doing one's work and existing is what I'm interested in. There are many layers of my person and it's sometimes hard to see it essentialized or simplified."

Despite her international success, she says she gives little thought to strategy in an art world that has largely ignored female talent and, until recently, all but shut out Black artists. She says her family's emphasis on freedom — that as long as you can pay the rent, do what you love — still shapes her life choices.

"I just really go with what I desire, my love of things, my interest, my curiosity," she said.

"I have very little expectations, but I have a lot of ambition in terms of the work. After that, the rest is kind of noise. It's other people's game."