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Art critic and curator Leonor Vega, who has just published an academic article analyzing the work of Maria Madeira, the first East Timorese artist to participate in the Venice Art Biennale, points out that from now on, the world’s attention will be more focused on the national artistic landscape. Maria Madeira’s project “Kiss and Don’t Tell” will be on display in the iconic Italian city until November
How significant is the debut of an East Timorese artist at one of the oldest and most influential art biennales in the world? East Timor is participating in the Venice Art Biennale for the first time with artist Maria Madeira, who presented the project “Kiss Without Telling” in a small pavilion.
Curator, art critic and former Macau resident Leonor Veiga has just published an article in the academic journal Third Text: Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Art and Culture, analyzing the importance of Maria Madera’s debut at this Biennale, not only for herself as an artist but also for the country she represents.
In the article “‘Don’t kiss and tell’: Maria Madeira’s work in the Timor-Leste Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale”, Leonor Veiga begins by saying that “Timor-Leste is a new country where the art ecosystem (education, spaces, markets and public) is not yet fully developed”. Arte Moris – Escola Livre de Arte was the first school created in the country, which was eventually demolished in 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was an event that led to a “student uprising”, which was “dramatic”.
However, the Timorese artist’s presence at the Venice Biennale could now inspire new directions, “despite the fragility of the local art ecosystem”. “Hopefully, after this first successful interaction, Timor-Leste’s return to the Venice Biennale will allow for the presentation of more Timorese art”, he described.
Leonor Vega stressed that “Timor-Leste has a thriving art community that includes several generations of artists” but “it has no museums and no art schools”, so “the leap to a place as prestigious and professional as the Venice Biennale is worth celebrating because it embodies national pride and passion.”
Therefore, “it is hoped that this participation in the Venice Biennale will contribute to the recovery of the local art ecosystem and at the same time serve to appease the Arte Moris generation of artists.”
The path to activism
Maria Madeira started painting in the 90s and from that time on she transformed art into a form of activism, as highlighted in Leonor Veiga’s article, who recalls that Maria Madeira was initially “a voice against the Indonesian occupation since her return to Timor-Leste, 2000”, becoming “a female voice”.
Maria Madeira exhibited Saying Goodbye with a Kiss in a pavilion in a 16th-century mansion, paying tribute to “the most remote group of people in the country, the anonymous Timorese women who suffered sexual violence” during East Timor’s occupation by Indonesia between 1975 and 1999.
Maria Madeira thus began work on “Kiss without Telling” in 2000, a project that gradually developed until 2023. Participation in the Venice Biennale allowed her to complete this work.
Thus, as Leonor Veiga describes in the article, “In the early days, [Maria Madeira] He was curious to learn about the culture of the country, so the use and weaving of betel nuts came naturally to him. “However, after becoming aware of the former torture chambers, the artist “changed the direction of her activities and stopped referring to the contribution of women to the resistance”.
“Today, as he told me in Venice, he is trying to find the graves of East Timorese women, but strangely, these graves do not seem to exist. This shows how rampant inequality is, but also how the artist, through her artistic and academic work, tries to dissect social injustices. Therefore, the presentation of the Venice Biennale (…) cannot be divorced from its origins as an activist”, it can be read like this.
Regarding the choice of the exhibition location, “it is entirely consistent with the size of the country”, but “in direct contrast to this scale is the depth of the content presented, which, although very local due to its direct relevance to real Timorese people, conveys a global issue: violations of women’s human rights, especially those caused by a history of conflict, war, occupation and colonization”, the article emphasizes.
For Leonor Vega, Maria Madera’s work “stands the test of history” because “East Timorese women needed to be rescued from invisibility; they needed to escape the torture chambers and be canonized.” Therefore, “a 16th-century Venetian palace was a good choice for this purpose.”
The Venice Biennale, which will end on November 24, also has a space dedicated to Macau, represented by the exhibition “Above Zobeida” curated by Wong Wing Cheong and Cheung Chan. The work is now in the collection of the Conservatory of Santa Maria del Pieta in Venice.
The installation is inspired by Italo Calvino’s work Invisible Cities, which tells the story of the fictional city of Zobeida. According to the official description of the exhibition, “With this project, Wong Yung-chang delves into the hidden crisis of mutation,” presenting “a fictional world located in an area above the ruins of the city, inhabited only by a group of herbivorous animals with elongated legs.”
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