Dublin-born artist Isabel Nolan discusses her Ireland pavilion exhibition "Dreamshook" at the Venice Biennale, developed with curator Georgina Jackson. The show explores the liminal state between dreaming and waking, weaving a fictional narrative around Renaissance humanist Aldo Manuzio, who popularized portable books. Nolan draws on late Medieval and early Renaissance visual language, using intimate forms like textiles to tackle big ideas about cosmology, religion, and humanism. She describes her ambivalent relationship with European cultural inheritance and the need to recover occluded voices.
This interview matters because it offers insight into a major national pavilion at the Venice Biennale, one of the most prestigious events in the art world. Nolan's work reflects contemporary art's engagement with historical narratives, the tension between tradition and inclusivity, and the power of small, bodily forms to address profound philosophical questions. Her pavilion contributes to ongoing conversations about how artists reinterpret the past to make sense of the present.