Berezhna on Venice Biennale-2026: Сonfident that national pavilion to fulfill its political role
The team of the Ukrainian pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2026 presented the national exposition "Security Guarantees" and spoke about the key messages for the international audience.
"I am very glad to be here. To understand that we are on the way to the Biennale, that so much important work has been done by the team, and my confidence and hope that the pavilion will fulfill its great mission and do important political work at the event itself is even greater," Deputy Prime Minister for Humanitarian Policy and Minister of Culture of Ukraine Tetiana Berezhna said within the Dialogue Platform at the Ukrainian House in Kyiv on Thursday.
She said that what the national pavilion does at the Biennale is a kind of diplomacy, negotiations and the position that Ukraine is trying to convey to the world.
"And it is very important that this year the Biennale raises such an important topic as security guarantees. Because security guarantees are such a maxim that is found in absolutely all negotiations, in absolutely all conversations," the Deputy Prime Minister said.
She said the project shows the fact that the established world order, established ideas need to be rethought.
"And here Ukraine takes on the role of saying, look, security guarantees are not working, security guarantees should be different," Berezhna said.
She said it is important to use all possible ways to convey your message to the world: in the language of art, in the language of business negotiations, in the language of economics, in the language of simply human relationships.
"Many people have convinced me that the Biennale, which was in the field of cinema, is one thing, politics is another. No! Now it doesn't work anymore. Therefore, I would not talk about the instrumentalization of art, but we simply need to understand that Ukraine should use this situation in which we live, because time is really very short and every minute is precious," Berezhna said.
The Deputy Prime Minister also said she hopes that the sculpture will be installed exactly where the Ukrainian side planned.
The Security Guarantees project is being implemented in partnership with the NGO Museum Open for Repair.
The central object of the exhibition will be the concrete sculpture "Deer" from the Origami series, created by Zhanna Kadyrova in 2019 for Leontovych Park in Pokrovsk. It was installed on the site of a dismantled Soviet aircraft, turning the space of a military symbol into a space of cultural rethinking.
It is noted that the project raises the topic of unfulfilled security guarantees, for which Ukraine got rid of its nuclear arsenal, reflects the fragility of peace and the resilience of the Ukrainian people.
The curators of the project are Ksenia Malykh and Leonid Marushchak.
As reported by an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent, among other things, the event will feature a screening of the film "IDPs" about the evacuation of Zhanna Kadyrova's sculpture "Origami Deer" - the central object of the Ukrainian pavilion project – from Pokrovsk.
