Timor-Leste has announced further details of its 2026 Venice Biennale presentation, titled “Across Words” and directed by scholar and curator Loredana Pazzini-Paracciani. The exhibition will feature works by artists Verónica Pereira Maia, Etson Caminha, and Juventino Madeira, celebrating the nation’s unique ethnolinguistic diversity.

A highlight is Pereira Maia’s seminal textile work Tais Don (1994–99) which commemorates the 1991 Santa Cruz massacre, when over 250 pro-independence demonstrators were killed by Indonesian security forces in Dili. Through the traditional Timorese technique of tais weaving, the work employs a phonetic transcription of the alphabet to explore themes of nation-making, oral histories, and the transmission of knowledge.

The show will also unveil several major installations, including CUALE (Flow) (2025–26) by sound and performance artist Etson Caminha and Fraze ne’ebé seidauk hotu (An Unfinished Sentence) (2025–26) by Juventino Madeira, which trace the history and evolution of Timor-Leste’s identity from the perspective of a younger generation.

Meanwhile, a comprehensive anthology of Timor-Leste’s contemporary art scene, titled ACROSS WORDS: An Anthology (2026), will accompany the exhibition, compiling newly commissioned writings by researchers, curators, scholars, and artists from Southeast Asia and overseas. 

Together, the presentation foregrounds the significance of language and oral memory in shaping cultural identity. In a press release, Pazzini-Paracciani stated: “In bringing these multigenerational artists together, the [p]avilion seeks to decolonize the viewer’s gaze, opening it to a process of mutual growth and an understanding of Timor-Leste not as a static entity, but as a living, evolving, unfinished sentence.”

The Timor-Leste Pavilion will open in the Arsenale, from May 9 to November 22.

Aisha Traub Chan is an editorial intern at ArtAsiaPacific.