Taiwanese-born artist Vincent J. F. Huang will once again represent the Pacific Island nation of Tuvalu at the 2017 Venice Biennale. Aida Yuen Wong, the chair of the department of fine arts at Brandeis University, will curate the pavilion.
The primary focus of Huang’s art is to bring attention to the crisis of climate change. In line with his previous participation at the biennale, Huang will use the Tuvalu pavilion to remind visitors of the immediate threat that rising sea levels hold for the biennale’s smallest participating country (not to mention its host city.)
In 2015, Huang literally flooded the pavilion to get his message across. This time around, the artist plans to create an installation that serves as a site for storytelling. Beyond the biennale, Huang’s pavilion will also form part of an internationally-coordinated “social sculpture,” involving on- and off-line projects that aim to foster global solidarity around the notion of addressing climate change.