Abbas Akhavan Turns the Canada Pavilion Into a Living Greenhouse at Venice Biennale
The Canada Pavilion at the Venice Biennale now feels less like a national exhibition space than a climate-controlled ecosystem. For his presentation, Entre chien et loup, Iranian-born artist Abbas Akhavan (b. 1977) has transformed the glass-and-brick structure into a greenhouse-like installation built around a 6,000-gallon water tank that weighs roughly 25 tons.
The changes are extensive. Grow lights, water misters, a new ventilation system, moisture protection for the wood ceiling, and structural modifications were all added to accommodate the installation. At the center of the pavilion are giant Victoria water lilies, which are expected to grow, bloom, and eventually die during the run of the exhibition, aligning the work’s life cycle with the Biennale itself.
Akhavan has described the pavilion as a building-sized Wardian case, the Victorian-era terrarium once used to transport plants across imperial trade routes. The reference also evokes London’s Crystal Palace and the display of Victoria lilies at the Great Exhibition of 1851, where the plant was framed as a botanical marvel. Yet Akhavan has been careful not to reduce the work to a single historical argument. He said he is less interested in a purely anti-colonial reading than in allowing the lilies and the objects around them to be seen with some of their inherited burden temporarily lifted.
The project was developed in close collaboration with curator Kim Nguyen, Kew Gardens, and the Orto Botanico di Padova, which helped cultivate the seeds before installation. Akhavan and Nguyen also worked with architects and engineers to alter the pavilion while protecting the tree around which the building was constructed. Nguyen said Akhavan saw that tree as “the inspiration for everything,” a reminder that the pavilion was already shaped by nature before the artist brought nature inside.
That sense of uncertainty is central to the work. The lilies may thrive under the grow lights, or they may struggle in conditions that are not their ideal habitat. In the best case, they could spread across the pool and reach three feet in size; if they do, pruning will be necessary. Akhavan, who splits his time between Montreal and Berlin, has long worked across installation, sculpture, performance, and video, often using materials that carry historical and political charge without allowing those meanings to settle into a single reading. Entre chien et loup continues that approach, but with a quieter wager: that surrender, not mastery, may be the most exacting form of control.
