August 7 - At the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, Sierra Leone makes its historic debut with “Worlds of Today,” a project that looks beyond the traditional boundaries of a national pavilion. Presented at the Liceo Artistico Guggenheim, the exhibition brings together artists from Sierra Leone, West Africa, Italy, and Mexico, turning Venice into a meeting point between different cultures, histories, and artistic languages.
Curated by Sandro Orlandi Stagl and Willy Montini, the project takes inspiration from the Biennale’s theme, “In Minor Keys,” developed under the late curator Koyo Kouoh. Rather than focusing on the loudest narratives of the contemporary world, the exhibition listens to quieter stories of memory, transformation, resilience, identity, and social responsibility.
Its central premise is straightforward but ambitious: art can create connections where geography, politics, and history have often created divisions.
A Conversation Across Continents
The Sierra Leonean presence is represented by Hawa-Jane Bangura, Ayesha Feisal, Hickmatu Bintu Leigh, and Abu Bakarr Mansaray, whose practices approach the contemporary world through very different perspectives.
Mansaray’s fantastical machines transform memories of Sierra Leone’s civil war into visions of technological invention and Afrofuturist possibility, while Bangura draws on ancient African civilizations to reconnect contemporary identity with a deeper cultural history. Feisal, meanwhile, considers resilience through organic sculptural forms, demonstrating how personal and collective experiences can be translated into visual languages that speak beyond their original context.
These works are not presented as an isolated statement about Sierra Leone. They become part of a larger international conversation.
The West African dimension expands through Seini Awa Camara of Senegal, Abdoul Ganiou Dermani of Togo, Eloy Lokossou of Benin, and Mòyọ̀sórẹ́ Martins of Nigeria. Their presence introduces different cultural histories and artistic approaches while resisting the idea of Africa as a homogeneous entity.
But the exhibition deliberately goes further.
From Africa to Italy and Mexico
The international artists are essential to the pavilion’s broader proposition.
Italian artists Eros Bonamini, Piergiorgio Colombara, Jacopo Di Cera, Fernando Garbellotto, Gianfranco Gentile, Margherita Levo Rosenberg, and Alberto Salvetti, together with Mexican artist Armando Romero, bring another set of perspectives into the exhibition.
Their inclusion shifts the project away from a simple presentation of African art to an exploration of what happens when different artistic traditions are placed in direct proximity.
The dialogue is not necessarily based on shared aesthetics. It emerges through shared questions.
Memory, the relationship between human beings and nature, technological change, transformation, perception, and the social role of art acquire different meanings depending on where an artist comes from. By bringing these perspectives together, “Worlds of Today” allows those differences to remain visible while creating unexpected points of connection.
The Italian presence is particularly significant within the context of Venice. The pavilion does not position African and European artists on opposite sides of a cultural divide; instead, it places them within the same visual and intellectual landscape.
This approach also gives the project a distinctly contemporary dimension. In an increasingly interconnected art world, cultural exchange is no longer simply a matter of representation. It is a process of mutual influence.
A Pavilion Without a Single Voice
The ECOWAS component reinforces this idea.
By bringing together artists from Senegal, Togo, Benin, and Nigeria within Sierra Leone’s national pavilion, the project creates a form of regional dialogue that complements its international dimension. West Africa is presented through multiple voices rather than a single identity, while the participation of artists from Italy and Mexico extends that conversation beyond the continent.
The result resembles a cultural constellation: each artist maintains an individual position, yet the meaning of the exhibition emerges from the relationships between them.
This is particularly relevant at a time when cultural and political debates are increasingly shaped by borders and competing identities. The pavilion proposes another model—one in which identity can remain rooted while still being open to encounter.
Its regional dimension also resonates with the concurrent presidencies of Sierra Leone and ECOWAS under H.E. President Julius Maada Bio, giving the project a wider context of West African cooperation.
Art as a Bridge
The choice of the Liceo Artistico Guggenheim adds another layer to this idea of exchange. By placing the pavilion within an educational environment, the exhibition becomes a space where artists, students, and visitors can meet and engage with different perspectives.
The pavilion’s message is ultimately not that cultures should become alike, but that they can understand one another without losing their differences.
“Worlds of Today” therefore proposes art as a bridge—not a bridge that erases borders, but one that makes crossing them possible.
At Venice, Sierra Leone’s first participation becomes an opportunity to rethink what a national pavilion can be. It can be a place of representation, but also a place of encounter; a platform for national identity, but also an opening toward the wider world.
From Sierra Leone to Senegal, from Nigeria to Italy, from Benin to Mexico, the exhibition suggests that the contemporary art world is strongest when it becomes a conversation rather than a hierarchy.
In Venice, Sierra Leone is not simply presenting its art to the world. It is creating a space where different worlds can meet.
