Antonio José Guzmán and Iva Jankovic, working as the duo Messengers of the Sun, will represent Panama at the 61st Venice Biennale in 2026. Their project, titled *Tropical Hyperstition*, is an installation and performance piece that explores the forced displacement and segregation of Panamanians and immigrants during and after the construction of the Panama Canal. The work features a 20-meter-long handwoven indigo-dyed hammock and patchwork textiles combining archival photographs with genetic and geometric motifs, all housed in the Panama Pavilion at the Arsenale. The artists draw on personal and collective experiences of structural injustice rooted in Panama’s Canal Zone history, addressing colonial legacies, racialized progress, and imperial extractive logics.
This presentation matters because it brings Panama’s Canal histories—and the communities displaced around it—into a global frame amid renewed debates about sovereignty, borders, and strategic infrastructure. The work directly engages the Biennale’s theme, *In Minor Keys*, by creating sensory, affective spaces that curator Koyo Kouoh describes as “oases” or “minor islands” of joy, hope, and collectivity. By foregrounding erased histories through textiles, sound, and performance, Guzmán and Jankovic offer a powerful counter-narrative to dominant structures of representation, linking ancestral knowledge with contemporary sustainability concerns.