Somalia participates in the Venice Biennale for the first time, with a Pavilion on poetry

The Federal Republic of Somalia will participate in the Venice Biennale for the first time with its first National Pavilion, which will be on view from May 9 to Nov. 22, 2026 at Palazzo Caboto. The exhibition will bring together works by Ayan Farah, Asmaa Jama and Warsan Shire, marking a historic moment for the country’s presence at the event. Known internationally as the "Nation of Poets, Somalia will propose a three-level Pavilion, built according to a triadic structure: three women artists, three expressive registers and three relational modes. The project, titled SADDEXLEEY (sa-DEH-ley), is named after a Somali poetic form based on a three-part composition. The term is derived from saddex, meaning “three,” and recalls a generative logic based on repetition, variation and relationship.

Rooted in the Somali oral tradition, in which poetry represents a social architecture and a form of thought, the exhibition translates this poetic structure into spatial form, in dialogue with the Biennale Arte 2026 theme, In Minor Keys. Word, sound and matter intertwine, giving rise to a kind of living poetry.

SADDEXLEEY will propose the concept of belonging not as an explicit statement, but as a sensitive experience. Through different languages, geographies and disciplines, the three artists will investigate memory and heritage using fabric, poetry and filmic language. Ayan Farah works with textiles and sediments, understood as custodians of time and what cannot be expressed directly. Asmaa Jama traverses cinema, performance and archival practices, interrogating the ways in which heritage is documented and reactivated. Warsan Shire, through poetry, explores themes of uprooting and intimacy, making language a tool at once testimonial and archival. Their practices converge around rhythm, matter and voice, shaping an experience in which memory is not simply told, but perceived. Historically, poetry has played a fundamental role in Somalia as a social structure capable of organizing thought and the transmission of collective memory. In this project, poetry becomes method: a key to organizing space and perception, according to an approach developed by curators Mohamed Mire and Fabio Scrivanti.

The Pavilion will be housed in Palazzo Caboto, at the intersection of Riva degli Schiavoni, Riva dei Sette Martiri and Via Garibaldi. The National Pavilion of Somalia is commissioned by Abdirahman Yusuf Mohamud, Cultural Advisor on behalf of the Office of the Prime Minister, and is implemented with the support of the Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Somalia. The project also has the collaboration of Galerie Nordenhake and Galerie Kadel Willborn galleries as main partners, as well as contributions from private supporters.

Ayan Farah is a Somali-Swedish artist based in Stockholm. Working with painting, textiles and material research, his practice explores landscape as a physical, political and poetic system. Focusing on land, water and the knowledge embedded in materials as carriers of memory, she uses local sediments and natural elements. Through painting, embroidery and installation, her work follows the movement of matter across boundaries and ecologies, where geology, labor and c olonial histories converge. She has exhibited internationally, including at Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Fondazione Prada in Venice, Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn, and Hunterian Art Gallery in Glasgow. Her works are part of important public and private collections, including the Moderna Museet and the Kadist Foundation.

Asmaa Jama is a Somali-Danish poet, filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist based in Bristol. Her poems have appeared in The Poetry Review, Ambit and Magma. In 2024 she won the Geoffrey Dearmer Poetry Prize and has been a finalist or shortlisted for the Brunel African Poetry Prize, the Wasafiri Writing Prize, the James Berry Poetry Prize and the National Poetry Competition. Her films explore archival memory, myth and diasporic narratives, including Before We Disappear (2021), commissioned by BBC Arts, and Except this time nothing returns from the ashes (2022/23), co-directed with Gouled Ahmed. His work won the Berwick Film Festival New Cinema Award and was presented at Spike Island, The Africa Centre (New York) and at the 18th. International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale. In 2023 he won the Art X Prize, supported by Yinka Shonibare’s G.A.S. residency.

Warsan Shire is a Somali-British writer and poet. Her debut collection Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head was published by Penguin Random House in 2022. Her first pamphlet, Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth, was published by Flipped Eye Publishing in 2011. In 2013 she won the first Brunel University African Poetry Prize, and in 2014 she was named London’s first Young Poet Laureate. She was also Poet in Residence in Queensland, Australia, where she collaborated with the Aboriginal Centre for Performing Arts. In 2015 she published the limited edition pamphlet Her Blue Body. In 2016 and 2020 she collaborated with Beyoncé Knowles - Carter on the poetic lyrics and film adaptation for the visual albums Lemonade and Black Is King. In 2017 she was included in the Penguin Modern Poets series along with Sharon Olds and Malika Booker. She also wrote the short film Brave Girl Rising, which gives voice to Somali girls in Africa’s largest refugee camp. Her work has been translated and published in dozens of countries around the world.

Somalia participates in the Venice Biennale for the first time, with a Pavilion on poetry

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.