00:00A suitcase and a lot of memories.
00:04Exile and loss of homeland are central themes
00:06in the work of Somali-British poet Warsan Shear.
00:09This room she created is part of the Somali Pavilion.
00:13What unites the artists exhibiting here is the same fate,
00:17the civil war in Somalia and a life far from home.
00:21The country is represented at the Venice Art Biennale for the first time,
00:25showcasing its artists' work at Palazzo Caboto.
00:29The civil war broke out in 1991 and made it quite clear
00:33that they, you know, that wouldn't be a place to return to at that point.
00:38Ayaan Farah lives in Sweden and Asma Jamar has made a new home in England.
00:43These women are among the millions of people in the Somali diaspora.
00:47Their art is influenced by the culture of their homeland.
00:51A very direct kind of source for me is like the poetry in Somalia.
00:56I learnt from my father.
00:58He was always reading poems to me, translating it to me.
01:02A poet and filmmaker living in Bristol,
01:05Asma Jamar makes Somalia's poetry tradition the starting point of her work.
01:12At the Biennale Pavilion, she draws on other traditions of her homeland.
01:17Somali clothing, musical instruments and mythological tales flow into her video,
01:23which she made in Mogadishu and Bristol.
01:25She was inspired by the lives of Somali pearl divers.
01:31The country's traditions as practiced within families play an important role in Ayaan's artwork too.
01:40I've also worked with embroidery and embroidery brings back certain knowledge
01:46that's always been inherited in my family.
01:49At Ayaan's studio in Stockholm, her mother is helping her complete a piece for the Biennale.
01:55She's also a direct inspiration for Ayaan's art.
01:58I always use clays or pigments and this particular work is made with red clay
02:06and it's from a region in Somalia called Senag.
02:09When my mother grew up, she didn't know exactly when she was born.
02:13In Somalia, it's quite poetic in the way people describe their birth year.
02:17So she would always say, I was born in the year of the red storm.
02:20And that's what everyone called 1951.
02:24And this is the finished piece.
02:26One exhibition, many inspirations.
02:29But a group of artists and cultural figures from Somalia has publicly voiced criticism,
02:34saying the pavilion does not represent them.
02:36The exhibition at the Biennale is centered around the art of, I may add,
02:43three amazing Somali diaspora female artists.
02:47But the voices and realities of artists and art organizations in Somalia were not included.
02:55Like Ayaan and Asma, Segal Ali grew up abroad.
03:00But she later returned to Somalia, where she started the Somali Art Foundation.
03:07She's well acquainted with the difficult conditions for artists in the country.
03:12After decades of conflict, Somalia is in the midst of rebuilding its cultural life.
03:17And that's why she thinks it was wrong to exclude from the official Biennale Pavilion
03:22those artists who are working to preserve Somalia's local art scene.
03:28But the artists who are represented in the pavilion say they feel closely connected to their peers back in Somalia.
03:38My first inspiration to even make art came from artists based in Somalia.
03:44Somalia's first pavilion at the world's best-known art fair is a historic debut,
03:49but one with an ambivalent execution.
03:53And that's why it's a very important thing.
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