Canada 2022

Title: 2011 ≠ 1848
Commissioner: National Gallery of Canada
Curator: Reid Shier
Exhibitor: Stan Douglas

Stan Douglas represents Canada at the 59th Venice Biennale. “2011 ≠ 1848” is inspired by the tenth anniversary of 2011, a year that saw significant social and political unrest around the globe including the Arab Spring in North Africa and the Middle East, the Occupy protests that began in New York, the widespread unrest in the UK in response to austerity measures, as well as a riot in the artist’s hometown of Vancouver following a hockey final. Douglas’ exhibition draws a comparison between the events of 2011 and those of 1848, a year in which continent-wide upheaval found European middle and working classes allied in a fight against a lack of democratic freedoms, restrictions on the press, and the continued dominance of an aristocratic elite. The revolt in 1848 was continental, as news spread by print media, but the revolt in 2011 was global, with news spread virally by way of electronic media. Across Europe and North America, the events of 2011 were simply policed and ignored. In North Africa and the Middle East, they were suppressed or subverted, with a few notable exceptions. The works explore the events of 2011 as unconscious reactions to the economic and political status quo which followed the recession of 2008 and examine the ways in which social media-fuelled movements for change.

This year Canada has two exhibition venues for the first time, its historical pavilion in the Giardini and the Magazzini del Sale No. 5. The former hosts four large-scale photographs and the latter shows a major new two-channel video installation.