Venice Biennale: Yassmeen Tukan from the Russian Pavilion

Irina Nakhova's Green Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale. Courtesy Russia Pavilion

As the 56th Venice Biennale comes to a close, we round off the series of reports from the interns who manned the UAE’s National Pavilion with this report from Yassmeen D Tukan, a Jordanian who currently lives in the UAE. She obtained her BA in Islamic Arts and Architecture from the World Islamic Sciences and Education in Amman, Jordan in 2009. Yassmeen brings us her take on the Russian Pavilion.

Yasmeen writes:

The Russian Pavilion, curated by Margarita Tupitsyn, presented Irina Nakhova's site-specific installation The Green Pavilion. This installation presented the contribution, great development and expansion of the artist's form of conceptualism.

In the 1980s, Nakhova used one room in her apartment in Moscow to begin a new journey on a series of environments entitled by Rooms.

Nakhova was inspired and derived her original idea from The Man Who Flew into the Cosmos from His Room an installation by Ilya Kabakov, executed and produced for the 45th Venice Biennial in 1993 and called Red Pavilion.

This year, the pavilion facade is painted in green, deliberately chosen to evoke the original appearance of the pavilion designed by Aleksei Shchusev in 1914. The interior structure and space is designed to accommodate various artistic practices.

Both Margarita Tupitsyn and Irina Nakhova wanted to continue the dialogue that was previously established through Ilya Kabakov's Red Pavilion. Although, at the time, there was little financial support, Kabakov aimed to demonstrate and highlight the importance of colour for both Russian modernist and postmodernist artists.

Kabakov produced the Red Pavilion installation on the Russian Pavilion's grounds leaving the main space empty. Kabakov aimed to highlight the rejection from the cultural institutions to participate in the Soviet culture development and industry at that time.

Nakhova's Green Pavilion aims to highlight the struggle and difficulties that the Russian artists went through at that time and the reflection and the global significance and importance in the post-Soviet period. Passing by a narrow path to the central space was a suspicious feeling of what to expect.

A projection called Worms of History is a square shaped glass projection on the floor of earthworms moving. Along with this projection, built in pillars and arches present Russian architecture and through them there are multiple projections on the walls that present a selection of black and white photographs of historical faces in Russia.

• Yassmeen D Tukan has been working at Sharjah Art Foundation as a Senior Project Coordinator for the past five years. During her free time, Yassmeen also practices her own art, that combines a balance of traditional Islamic arts and contemporary art. She would like to pursue a Masters degree in Curatorial Studies. Keep up with her on Instagram on @veniceinterns and @yassmint and on hashtags #veniceinterns and #uaeinvenice.