Monuments to the Everyday
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Pakistan at the Venice Biennale 2026
Hassan Tahir Latif
Our managing editor spoke to artist Faiza Butt ahead of the Venice Biennale 2026. The Pakistan Pavilion at the 61st edition of La Biennale di Venezia is curated by Beatriz Cifuentes Feliciano and is a presentation of works by Faiza Butt entitled Punj.AB—A Sublime Terrain. The pavilion opened on 9th May, 2026 and will continue till 22nd November, 2026 at the Ex Farmacia Solveni on the Dorsoduro Museum Mile.
This weekend Venice transformed yet again into a playground for the international art community, as it opened itself up to host the 61st iteration of the historic La Biennale de Venezia, arguably one of the most prominent art exhibitions in the world. It also marked the second time that the Pakistan Pavilion went up in Venice, following a maiden presentation in 2019 by Naiza Khan, curated by Zahra F. Khan.
Entitled ‘Punj.AB—A Sublime Terrain’, this year’s pavilion features artworks by artist Faiza Butt, curated by Beatriz Cifuentes Feliciano, and considers Punjab as a “space shaped by memory and passage, where histories of division continue to inform cultural narratives.” It brings to Venice Faiza Butt’s multi-disciplinary practice—painting, ceramics, textiles and photography—as a living archive of a Punjab that extends across eras and cultural affiliations, and beyond the recent memory of colonial violence.
Earlier this month I spoke to Faiza over a Zoom call, as she began putting the final touches on the show, about the work and her vision behind it. Here, I present a condensed version of our conversation.
Faiza Butt, originally from Lahore and now practicing in London, is an artist trained at the National College of Arts and the Slade School of Fine Art, whose work has been exhibited widely internationally and is held in major public and private collections, including the British Museum and the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art. Her paintings, which were my introduction to her practice, are intricately created with tiny dots that remind one of the Pointillists or the par dokht miniature technique. The final product sits somewhere between photography and embroidery, as each dot can be a stand-in for a pixel or a stitch. Through these works Faiza’s decades long practice has interrogated an array of socio-political issues faced by Pakistanis: gender, political violence, misogyny and patriarchy.
When asked to present at Venice, Faiza tells me that she began to reconsider her almost 30-year-long practice. A biennale exhibition is a major career milestone for any artist and Faiza wanted to take this as a moment to expand upon her creative practice and intellectual concerns, to look at the wider perspective. Intertwined with this was a layer of ‘representation’, as the task inherently comprises taking Pakistan to a global community, a tall order at any time, even more so with the current geopolitical landscape. She was also attuned to the effort—financially, bureaucratically, intellectually—to set up the Pakistan pavilion.
“It was an immense responsibility that was given to me, a huge privilege,” she comments. “I did not want to show the same things that my audience and collectors are used to. My work has always had a moral premise to it and is essentially my views of the world. But here, it had to be the ‘Pakistan pavilion’, not the ‘Faiza Butt pavilion’.”
The result is a “trans-historical survey using the visual language that explores the history of the Punjab region, from the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation to contemporary times” with all its messy pluralities and cultural complexities. She has envisioned this as a journey through time, split into different ‘chapters’ that position “Punjab as a generative terrain, where material abundance has driven cycles of invasion and encounter, producing continuous cultural cross-pollination and growth.”
Upon first reading the title of the show, I worried at the conflation of Punjab and Pakistan at a global presentation, and asked the same of her:
“I wanted to talk about Pakistan in a way that shows how our history connects to wider, global history. To talk generally about Pakistan is not possible for one or even ten artists; Pakistan is quite diverse! I chose to then talk about what I am most familiar with: Punjab. I was born here and I know it best.”
Punjab, then, is merely a point of departure, both geographically and socio-historically. Faiza resists singular narratives, focusing instead on multiplicities: of time, of cultures, of histories. Multiplicities of mediums as well—the solo presentation includes tapestries, paintings and video installations.
“I want to look at the cultural human cost of the way Punjab has shape-shifted through centuries”, explains Faiza.
Central to the presentation are textiles. Exploring weaving techniques and fabrics such as dhurrie, ikat, jacquard and hand-spun cotton, Faiza creates fantastically elaborate compositions that present the intended trans-historical narrative, depicting the myriad civilisations that have been associated with the region. A mix of architectural motifs, flora and fauna, as well as geometrical patterns lead us on this journey. We are reminded that history is a transient, inexorable process that extends beyond narratives constructed by any one community, religion or state. Faiza is also keenly aware of the problems with glorifying any one particular narrative. Although the work takes its material form from weaving practices that are a nod to Punjab’s cotton fields, she understands the bloody history of the crop in the region:
“There’s a lot of bloodshed in the history of Punjab. The invasions after invasions happened due to ‘surplus’, the surplus of cotton. The land that was providing this bounty, was creating its own curse. I have come across accounts of cotton that was being spun in the ancient, Indus times, being found in Egyptian tombs! So, I’ve taken cotton as the common thread through which I map history. The surplus of Punjab then takes me to various weaving traditions.”
In presenting what are functional objects and practices as ‘Art’, not by simply moving the object from the floor to the wall, but also by altering its scale, Faiza hopes to continue the ongoing conversation around the country’s traditional craft practices in contemporary times.
“Craft has to be reconsidered. We have to remember that the history of the western art world is not the history of the world,” she tells me. “If you want to truly decolonise your mind, find methods to reappropriate your own history. Aesthetics were never separate from function for us. Beauty emerged in weaving, in ceramics—in objects that were also being used daily.”
At its core, this presentation is a deeply collaborative process that celebrates the creators of such objects—Faiza worked with a number of practitioners (mostly women) of the local craft practices and sought to highlight and to honour them and include them at the exhibition. Consequently, she has created a series of portraits of these artisans. Additionally, videos of the artisans at work will be presented at the pavilion that allow audiences a closer look at these inherited traditions. (I understand that a biennale is an expensive operation, but I hope that one day artisans who collaborate with artists are taken to see the fruits of their labour in situ.)
“I have iconised my artisans to celebrate them, so they are there in the room with me—to make it as much of a true collaboration as I can,” she continues. “I have learnt immensely from them and they have learnt from me too; they used to question me on my use of colour or composition leading to great conversations. It was a constant exchange of knowledge.
“The outcomes are beautiful, time-and-labour intensive, slowly crafted pieces, where learning happened both ways—that is the gauge of success for me. I’m curious to see how audiences will respond to this departure from my existing body of work. I’m not selling my pointillist drawings here, for instance, because they are quite desirable with collectors and I wanted to show something new. I think the artist should guide the collector, not the other way around—that’s the death of an artist, to carry on making what collectors want.”
I muse about the return to craft practices in a time of rapidly rising AI-led technologies that seek to destroy what are essentially human experiences. I also remark on the ‘Arts and Crafts Movement’ of the 19th century that arose as a response to runaway industrialisation and extractive, exploitative global trade. Our conversation then briefly moves to the urgent need to preserve what is ‘human’ and create work that can outlive us. Faiza speaks against the fetishisation of technology and our shift away from the sensory, embodied experiences of the world around us.
“We are sensory creatures,” she states emphatically. “We are biological technologies! Working with our hands is essential to being human and unfortunately we are isolating ourselves from these experiences.”
This return to a more sensorial existence, to a slower way of life that rejects dominant narratives and rejoices in pluralities is what forms the central conceit of this year’s Venice Biennale. The theme for this year, In Minor Keys, is the late curator Koyo Kouoh’s exhortation to view the world differently, to ‘shift to a slower gear and tune in to the frequencies of the minor keys’, to listen to the minor keys. The central exhibition of the 61st Venice Biennale, attempts to do just that; incidentally, Pakistan is also represented here through the meditative work of artist Wardha Shabbir. (As an aside, I highly recommend everyone to read the introduction by the late curator—a moving contemplation on the fraught times that we are living in and the place of art and artists in it.)
Faiza Butt’s solo exhibition, and practice, is directly linked to this proposition: “Taking something minor and making it monumental has been the bedrock of my practice. My pointillist drawings, for instance, are supposed to be preparatory drawings that move towards a painting. But I make the drawings so ambitious that they rival paintings. This principle of making the ‘unmonumental’ monumental has always been a basis of my practice.
“In Punj.AB, I have taken ‘unmonumental’, everyday practices and made them the centre of the show. In Minor Keys has directed my approach towards Punjab for this show. I wanted to look beyond the way we have always look at the land.” Punj.AB becomes a thoughtful look at a fractured land, a commentary on the relics of time; a meditation on the confluence of colonial ravages and ancient practices.
As we begin to wrap up the conversation Faiza acknowledges the dire state of the world and how restrictive travel is for Pakistanis. I am told that she and the curator, Beatriz Cifuentes Feliciano (a London-based curator and researcher with a focus on modern and contemporary South Asian art practices), are in talks with institutions in Pakistan to eventually bring the show home.
For now, she hopes that those who visit the exhibition are positively surprised with the way Pakistan is being presented at an international art forum and that it gives rises to moments of interest for Pakistan, in its history, trade, materials and tourism—all beyond the usual state-sponsored narratives, because “this cross-pollination is what the human story is.”