Antigua and Barbuda 2019

Title: “Find Yourself: Carnival And Resistance”
Curators: Barbara Paca with Nina Khrushcheva; Co-curators: Luigi de Marzi, Marco Pianegonda
Commissioner: Daryll Matthew, Minister of Culture, National Festivals and the Arts
Artists: Timothy Payne, Sir Gerald Price, Joseph Seton and Frank Walter, Intangible Cultural, Heritage Artisans and Mas Troup

Located in a fifteenth-century monastery in the heart of Venice, the Pavilion of Antigua and Barbuda celebrates the tradition of Carnival. Since its inception as provocation to the slave system and then as post-abolition phenomenon, this religious celebration has been maintaining its nature of act of resistance. “Find Yourself: Carnival And Resistance” explores this Carnivalesque dimension widening its scope to other similar traditions, such as in Venice, New Orleans, Notting Hill, and Russia. Besides documenting Antiguans and Barbudans’ daily life and traditions, the photographic exhibition highlights the profound connections between distant countries’ Carnival rituals as a consequence of the international migration of symbols of freedom of expression.