VENICE.- Marking the second presentation of The Bahamas at the Venice Biennale following a 13-year hiatus, the Pavilion is an intergenerational dialogue between Bahamian artists John Beadle (1964–2024) and Lavar Munroe (b. 1982), curated by Dr. Krista Thompson. Both artists’ practices are grounded in the visual and social traditions of The Bahamas and the broader African diaspora, engaging in themes of collaboration, commemoration, and material transformation.

Beadle was a revered figure within The Bahamas’ artistic community and an inspiration to many, including Munroe. He was part of a community of makers who create costumes for Junkanoo, the centuries-old biannual national processional festival, which he described as “the cultural bedrock of The Bahamas.” Junkanoo informed his commitment to collaborative artmaking and his use of discarded materials such as cardboard, as seen in works such as Cuffed, Held in Check (2018) and Body Space III: Under Lock and Key (2012). Through these materials and recurring motifs seen throughout the exhibition—dysfunctional oars, mobile houses, and concealed cutlasses—he drew attention to people, things, and artistic processes often disregarded. Munroe has similarly worked at the intersection of Junkanoo and contemporary art, often using discarded cardboard and abandoned Junkanoo costumes.

The exhibition foregrounds Junkanoo’s memorial and spiritual dimensions—when a member of its community passes, performers gather to honor the deceased. The Pavilion commemorates Beadle through No Matter How Dreary and Gray, We People of Flesh and Blood Would Rather Live Here, Than in Another Man's Yard (2026), an 11-panel monumental painting by Munroe depicting a memorial procession, based on photographs by Bahamian photographer Jackson Petit. This work extends Munroe’s broader engagement with spiritual practices developed through recent trips to Tanzania, Senegal, and Zimbabwe. The exhibition features distinct sections devoted to Beadle and Munroe alongside collaborative works from the Jammin series (in honour of Jackson Burnside III and Brent Malone) (2014), which Beadle produced with Antonius Roberts and Stan Burnside as part of the Junkanoo-based Jammin collective. However Long the Night, the Dawn Will Break (2026) is a posthumous collaboration that sees Munroe incorporate materials recovered from Beadle’s studio after his passing, including sail material from Haitian sloops. Munroe began this practice to honor his late father, creating works based on unrealized plans he had to collaborate with him and using materials related to his profession as a parasail operator.

Resonating with the 2026 Venice Biennale's overarching theme, In Minor Keys, envisioned by the late Koyo Kouoh, which celebrates “artists who work at the boundaries of form and whose practices can be thought of as intricate melodies to be heard both collectively and on their own terms,” Thompson’s curatorial approach offers a distinctly Bahamian interpretation of this sentiment. The Pavilion highlights Beadle's and Munroe's use of discarded materials and collaborative processes to call attention to the hidden, the undervalued, “the minor keys,” in society and in the art world.