were more closely aligned with the national interest in their design, showcasing the desired version of industrial, scientific and cultural advances of the time. Whereas Fairs and Expositions were originally a unique means of acquiring (selective) knowledge about the world, with the rapid introduction of more advanced communication and travel technologies – including cinema, air travel, radio and television – reduced their importance. Expositions still exist, though they have become more ‘theme’ or issue-based events, focusing on sustainability, technology, and urban change. The Shanghai Expo in 2010 focused on the theme ‘Better City and Better Life’, attracting 71 million visitors and other recent events have chosen ‘Oceans and Coastline’ (South Korea, 2012), ‘Food and Resource Consumption’ (Milan, 2015) and the ‘Future of Energy’ as their topics.
The World Fairs, Expositions and Exhibitions like other ‘showcasing’ opportunities represent a platform for nations and regions to celebrate and promote industrial, scientific and cultural assets. They align opportunities for trade with the promotion of cultural and creative strengths – they educate and entertain. Like the Olympic Games and the linked Cultural Olympiad, they provide opportunities for cultural relations and cultural diplomacy activities in the form of dialogue, development of mutual understanding and the creation of new networks and partnerships. However, they also represent significant investments in the generation of ‘attention’.
2.1 Pavilions, Biennales, Festivals (and the creation of a Visual Brand) The art exhibitions included in World Fairs, Expositions and Exhibitions comprise an important feature of their offering. Participation in well-known arts events – such as the Venice Biennale, Documenta or Glasgow International – is perhaps the most obvious manner in which nations showcase visual art. Biennale events in particular project more about a nation and its place in the world than that which is apparent from the art that is on display. As Zaugg and Nishimura observe, a country pavilion ‘is typically a collaboration among a variety of stakeholders and/or private sponsors, cultural and diplomatic ministries, national galleries, curators and contemporary artists’ (Zaugg & Nishimura, 2015:134). In her discussion of the politics of representation and the Canadian pavilion at the Venice Biennale, Moreno provides a history of the event’s development noting that, ‘the first five Biennales presented Italian and international artists together at [a single] central pavilion without divisions or separations until Belgium built its own separate pavilion in 1907’ (Moreno, 2010:8). Subsequently, the Hungarians, Germans and British constructed their own exhibition spaces in 1909, followed by – among others – Russia in 1914 and the USA in 1930; expensive assertions of curatorial sovereignty that ‘was – and in many senses still is – only available to those countries with
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