Four National Pavilions at the 2022 Venice Biennale: Britain, Germany, France, USA

At the 2022 Venice Biennale, with the Russian and Czech/Slovak pavilions absent and the latter closed for renovation, the April opening saw long queues for the most anticipated national pavilions. The British Pavilion features Sonia Boyce's 'Feeling her way', a choral video installation with five female vocalists (Poppy Ajudha, Jacqui Dankworth MBE, Sofia Jernberg, Tanita Tikaram, and composer Errollyn Wallen CBE) whose voices merge into a single powerful Black female entity. The installation includes 'Devotional', a hall of fame of Black women musicians, surrounded by detailed wallpaper and gold accents. The German Pavilion presents Maria Eichhorn's 'Relocating a Structure', a minimalist intervention that strips walls and floor to reveal the building's brickwork and foundations, resembling an archaeological excavation. The French Pavilion, titled 'Les rêves n'ont pas de titre' by Zineb Sedira, immerses visitors in a dreamlike set blending cinema and reality, referencing films from the 1960s-70s co-produced by Algeria, France, and Italy. It features a bar design inspired by Ettore Scola's 'Ballando ballando', a tango performance, a cinema screening colonial history, and a coffin from Camus' 'The Stranger'. The US Pavilion showcases Simone Leigh's 'Sovereignty', with monumental sculptures drawing on African and diasporic artistic traditions, featuring polished surfaces and vernacular elements like straw and shells, elevating the female body.