Pakistan’s Ministry of National Heritage and Culture has announced that Faiza Butt will represent the country at the 61st Venice Biennale, marking its second participation following the inaugural pavilion in 2019.

Born in Lahore and now based in London, Butt is a contemporary artist whose practice spans drawings, paintings, and sculptures. Taking inspiration from cultural iconography and traditional formal techniques such as South Asian miniature painting, she employs provocative visual narratives to destabilize gendered stereotypes, center marginalized voices, and, in her own words, “disarm and challenge knee-jerk cultural associations.” Butt’s work has been exhibited internationally and is held in major public and private collections, including London’s British Museum and New Delhi’s Kiran Nadar Museum of Art.

Curated by Beatriz Cifuentes Feliciano and titled “Punj•AB—A Sublime Terrain,” the Pakistani Pavilion will explore the cultural landscape of Punjab—a region that was split during the partition of India in 1947. Cifuentes Feliciano stated: “My curatorial approach foregrounds plural art histories, positioning contemporary art from Pakistan in dialogue with inherited traditions of making.”

The exhibition will take place at Ex Farmacia Solveni on the Dorsoduro Museum Mile, on view from May 9 to November 22.

Aisha Traub Chan is an editorial intern at ArtAsiaPacific.