At the core of Venice’s history is trade. The floating lagoon has, for centuries, served as a meeting place for different cultures, both in terms of the people who visited La Serenissima and the goods they brought with them. Another well-known history is that of the city’s renowned glass factory on Murano island. But what has been almost forgotten to time is how the production of one specific glass object, conterie or Venetian seed beads, has had a lasting impact on the culture today. True to their names, these glass beads are the sizes of seeds, but for centuries, beginning around the 15th century, they have been coveted for their rarity and beauty, especially the cobalt blue ones. modalqq

The material quality of conterie and their importance to trade during the Age of Exploration form the basis for artist Kapwani Kiwanga’s project for this year’s Canadian Pavilion, commissioned by the National Gallery of Canada.

“Venice is built on many things, but trade is very much a big part of everything that surrounds us,” Kiwanga told ARTnews in a recent interview. “I’m interested in how the minute—the tiny bead—could be accumulated to such a monumental impact. In this case, it’s an aesthetic intervention, but it did have monumental impact on the whole mechanism of trade and interaction with in our now ‘modern world.’” modalqq

At the Pavilion, Kiwanga has installed dozens of dozens of strings of seed beads, each containing thousands upon thousands of beads, in the exterior and interior of the building. At the entrance, the blue beads are draped from the structure’s lintel; they gently sway in the breeze. Inside, variously hued beads range from yellow to red, orange to white. Kiwanga acquired these beads, which date to around the 1930s, from the stock held by a family that had produced them for generations. They were individually restrung in three studios in Venice, Berlin, and Montreal.

Kiwanga became interested in the seed beads during a site visit to the Canadian Pavilion just over a year ago. At first she was hesitant to continue with a project related to glass, given how obvious of a history that has to do with Venice, but she felt that her project would ultimately “bring a new perspective or a new nuance or complexity to something that we think we already know,” she said. “Materials can be new documents or new archives, witnesses almost, of past moments to allow us to look at human history differently,” that ultimately can help us “understand our current situation really quite well from a different angle.” modalqq