Foreigners Everywhere
According to the press release of the biennale …
The backdrop for the work is a world rife with multifarious crises concerning the movement and existence of people across countries, nations, territories and borders, which reflect the perils and pitfalls of language, translation, nationality, expressing differences and disparities conditioned by identity, nationality, race, gender, sexuality, freedom, and wealth. In this panorama, the expression Foreigners Everywhere has several meanings. First of all, that wherever you go and wherever you are you will always encounter foreigners—they/we are everywhere. Secondly, that no matter where you find yourself, you are always truly, and deep down inside, a foreigner.1
Aligned with this concept of foreigners everywhere is the experience of being a stranger or being strange:
The Italian straniero, the Portuguese estrangeiro, the French étranger, and the Spanish extranjero, are all etymologically connected to the strano, the estranho, the étrange, the extraño, respectively, which is precisely the stranger. The first meaning of the word “queer” is precisely “strange”, and thus the Exhibition unfolds and focuses on the production of other related subjects: the queer artist, who has moved within different sexualities and genders, often being persecuted or outlawed; the outsider artist, who is located at the margins of the art world, much like the self- taught artist, the folk artist and the artista popular; the indigenous artist, frequently treated as a foreigner in his or her own land.
It is this alignment that was of interest to the curator and biennale more generally.
The Artists
It is for this reason – addressing this alignment between strangeness and foreignness, and the beauty which arises out of identity and difference – the 60th International Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia has chosen to focus on artists themselves (see list of participants) as their experience of moving in and around the world also aligns with those who are ‘immigrants, expatriates, diasporic, émigrés, exiled, or refugees — particularly those who have moved between the Global South and the Global North.’ The exhibition readily notes, this includes the fact of the strange that is also familiar, which is the reason the exhibition focuses on other subjects: “the Queer artist, who has moved within different sexualities and genders, often being persecuted or outlawed; the outsider artist, who is located at the margins of the art world, much like the self- taught artist, the folk artist, and the artista popular; and the Indigenous artist, who is frequently treated as a foreigner in their own land.”
Respective Venues
Locations in which artists can be found:
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