Intervista a Nina Wakeford del Padiglione Svizzero alla Biennale di Venezia 2026
Nina Wakeford, artist and curator of the Swiss Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale, discusses the pavilion's project "The Unfinished Business of Living Together." The exhibition draws on two Swiss television broadcasts from 1978 and 1984—Telearena and Agora—in which gay, lesbian, and trans individuals spoke on national television. Rather than treating these as historical artifacts, Wakeford and her team (Gianmaria Andreetta, Luca Beeler, Miriam Laura Leonardi, Lithic Alliance, and Yul Tomatala) reactivate them as points of tension, creating a multimedia environment that explores unresolved issues of coexistence, visibility, and social difference.
The project matters because it refuses to treat the past as closed, instead using historical media to pressure the present. By foregrounding the unfinished work of 1970s and 1980s social movements around gender, race, ethnicity, and sexuality, the pavilion challenges visitors to confront ongoing struggles for social transformation. In an era of polarized debates about identity and inclusion, the Swiss Pavilion offers a model of art as a space for negotiation and friction rather than celebration or easy resolution.