Every edition of the Venice Biennale is memorable in its own way, but the 2024 iteration will surely be remembered many years from now for various reasons. On one end, organizers of the fair have been criticized for rejecting an exhibition by Palestinian artists amidst the ongoing war between Hamas and Israel \u2014\u00a0while on the opposite side, indigenous artists will make a triumphant mark by leading two major pavilions \u2014 Jeffrey Gibson, a Choctaw-Cherokee artist, who will lead the US Pavilion and Glic\u00e9ria Tupinamb\u00e1, who was just announced as the first indigenous artist to represent Brazil.<\/p>\n
Speaking on the latter, Brazil’s portion of the fair will be changing to the H\u00e3h\u00e3wpu\u00e1 pavilion, one of the original indigenous names for the country before it was colonized by the Portuguese. Glic\u00e9ria Tupinamb\u00e1, who also goes by C\u00e9lia Tupinamb\u00e1, hails from the Tupinamb\u00e1 community of Serra do Padeiro in Northeastern Brazil, and is known as a staunch public activist for women’s rights and indigenous representation. Back in 2010, Tupinamb\u00e1 and her child were imprisoned after returning to live on her community’s ancestral land. Nine years later, she spoke at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva lambasting the Brazilian government for its treatment of the nation’s indigenous population. <\/p>\n