Montreal artist Abbas Akhavan's installation "Entre chien et loup" transforms the Canadian pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale into a living climate system, featuring a humid, Amazon-like environment with a pond of Victoria water lilies. The seeds were sourced from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and germinated at the Orto Botanico di Padova, with the lilies growing and blooming over the course of the biennale.
The work uses the Victoria water lily—named after Queen Victoria and tied to imperial histories of collecting and displaying nature—to question who has access to the natural world and who is excluded. At a time of global wars, migration tensions, and climate anxiety, the installation reframes the national pavilion as a space for ecological reflection rather than national celebration, highlighting how wealth and empire shape human relationships with nature.