The Bahamas Returns to Venice With a Meditation on Junkanoo, Memory and the Afterlife of Collaboration

Collecting Art, take a look

Curated by Dr. Krista Thompson, In Another Man’s Yard brings John Beadle and Lavar Munroe into a charged intergenerational dialogue at La Biennale di Venezia. The Pavilion of The Bahamas at the 61st International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, presents In Another Man’s Yard: John Beadle, Lavar Munroe, and the Spirit of Posthumous Collaboration, curated by Dr. Krista Thompson. The exhibition marks the country’s second presentation at the International Art Exhibition, following a 13-year hiatus. At its centre is an intergenerational exchange between two Bahamian artists: John Beadle 1964–2024, a defining figure in the nation’s contemporary art history, and Lavar Munroe b. 1982, whose work continues to expand the visual language of The Bahamas across the wider African diaspora. Rooted in Junkanoo, social memory and the transformative possibilities of found materials, the Pavilion considers how artistic inheritance can move beyond tribute into active, living conversation. Beadle’s practice was shaped by the communal energy of Junkanoo, the centuries-old biannual national processional festival, which he described as ‘the cultural bedrock of The Bahamas’. As part of a community of costume-makers, he drew from its rituals of assembly, performance and collective labour, turning discarded cardboard and other humble materials into works of political and spiritual weight. This sensibility appears in pieces such as Cuffed, Held in Check 2018 and Body Space III: Under Lock and Key 2012, where dysfunctional oars, mobile houses and concealed cutlasses evoke restriction, survival and histories too often pushed to the margins. Beadle’s objects hold tension between beauty and burden, between the handmade and the historically freighted. Munroe’s practice, too, moves between Junkanoo and contemporary art, often working with abandoned cardboard, salvaged costumes and the residue of communal celebration. In Venice, his work speaks to Beadle not only as an artistic predecessor, but as a presence whose materials, gestures and unfinished possibilities continue to animate new forms. Lavar Munroe WWJD, 2020 Acrylic, spray paint, sneakers, balloon, staples, extension cord, cardboard, boxer shorts, fabric, blunts, toys, and collage on cut canvas 84 x 144 in Courtesy Pizzuti Collection The exhibition foregrounds the memorial and spiritual dimensions of Junkanoo. When a member of its community dies, performers gather in procession to honour the deceased. This ritual becomes the emotional spine of the Pavilion through Munroe’s 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 based on photographs by Bahamian photographer Jackson Petit. The work depicts a memorial procession and extends Munroe’s wider engagement with spiritual practices, shaped by recent journeys to Tanzania, Senegal and Zimbabwe. Alongside dedicated sections for Beadle and Munroe, the Pavilion presents collaborative works from the Jammin series in honour of Jackson Burnside III and Brent Malone 2014, created by Beadle with Antonius Roberts and Stan Burnside as part of the Junkanoo-based Jammin collective. The exhibition also includes However Long the Night, the Dawn Will Break 2026, a posthumous collaboration in which Munroe incorporates materials recovered from Beadle’s studio after his passing, including sail material from Haitian sloops. For Munroe, this method carries a personal resonance. He began working with the materials of the dead to honour his late father, creating works shaped by unrealised plans for collaboration and by objects connected to his father’s profession as a parasail operator. In the Pavilion, that intimate act expands into a broader meditation on artistic kinship, cultural continuity and the ethics of working with what remains. The exhibition resonates with Biennale Arte 2026’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 that idea, placing emphasis on the hidden, the undervalued and the materials society leaves behind. Through Beadle and Munroe, In Another Man’s Yard positions Junkanoo not as folklore or spectacle, but as a sophisticated cultural system: a language of procession, protest, mourning, assemblage and renewal. The Bahamas Pavilion becomes a site where cardboard, sailcloth, costume and memory are allowed to speak in full voice. A catalogue published by Skira accompanies the exhibition, with contributions from Dr. Christian Campbell, Amanda Coulson, John Cox, Tandazani Dhlakama and Dr. Krista Thompson. ©2026 Bahamas Pavilion,