The exterior of the Canada pavilion at the Venice Biennale is draped with hundreds of blue-beaded strings suspended from the roof lintels and cascading down the brickwork walls. Inside are thousands more in sunset hues veiling the pavilion interior. The strings are threaded with minute seed beads – tiny objects that carry a weighty history. Artist Kapwani Kiwanga explores the pivotal role of these Murano-made glass beads in the history of global trade and their “complex legacy”. But for an installation set in Venice, there is surprisingly little acknowledgement of the significance of seed bead…
