15. Cha(lle)nging Representations of Canada in Italy

This chapter examines those places where Canada lives in the imagination of non-Canadians and Canadians living abroad and the challenges faced when unsettling them. In witnessing the celebration of Canadian art at the Venice Biennale, visitors acknowledge the Canadianness of the art presented. They are proud, puzzled, or mesmerized. In my view, in the last Canadian exhibitions at the Biennale, what has been intriguing for an international audience has also been a discovery for Canadians. From 2015 to 2019, the Canadian presence at the Venice Biennale of both art and architecture addressed the sense of space, doubled with the questioning of the place of Indigenous Peoples in Canada, who identify as the stewards of the land and guardians of the water. Canadians and non-Canadians alike at the Biennale were asked to acknowledge the importance of reconciliation with Indigenous communities of Canada and, by doing so, to redefine what it means to be sharing land, space, and water, making it impossible to look at the Canadian nation as a singular encompassing place. Visitors were effectively asked to look at themselves in a mirror, and re-imagine and re-construct Canada; like Alice in her Wonderland, the Venice Biennale promoted and prompted a new framework for considering Canadian identity.