2.1 Pavilions, Biennales, Festivals (and the creation of a Visual Brand

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’.

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

the means to bear the burdens of building and maintaining a facility in a foreign country’ (Moreno, 2010:9). In contrast, the involvement of ‘less powerful nations in the Biennale [has been] rather minimal and sporadic’ rates of participation by such nations has only begun to increase in the latter

part of the twentieth century (Moreno, 2010:9). The geopolitical realities reflected in events such as

the Venice Biennale is further acknowledged elsewhere. For example, Rojas-Sotelo, observes that

the reason for the establishment of the Havana Biennial is not only to be found ‘in having connected the Cuban cultural establishment with the larger art world. It did not only situate the Biennale in the

global picture, but it went beyond. It opened debates about the cultural production of the South in

the larger discussions of the Global’ (Rojas-Sotelo, 2011:165). Further, the author provides

diagrammatic representations of the worldwide contact that the Havana Biennial has generated

observing that ‘more than two hundred institutions and almost a thousand people around the world have interacted with the members of the Havana Biennale team during the research, exploration,

and realisation of the Biennale’ (Rojas-Sotelo, 2011:168). Tang (2007) discusses the creation of

Singapore Biennale, an event founded as a result of the government’s recognition of the ‘economic value of the arts, as ‘cultural capital’ [which can be] systematically exploited in ‘creative clusters’ towards the long-term objective of helping transform the country into a ‘creative economy’’ (Tang, 2007:366). The very act/process of successfully staging a large-scale arts event does much to add to a place’s reputation (Tang, 2007:366). The inaugural Bangkok Art Biennale has attracted a number of

global superstars of the art world to exhibit, however, many of the participating Thai artists have

used the stage provided by the event ‘to showcase work that defies Thailand’s taboos, be they social stigmas or the political restrictions imposed by the military government that took over in a coup in

2014’ (Ellis-Petersen, 2018). It is unlikely that the interests and views of the state and exhibitors at

the biennale are comparable yet, thus far, the event has avoided censorship and the politically

redolent works of Thai contributors remains on display (Ellis-Petersen, 2018). The staging of such an

event, and the inclusion of ‘taboo topics’ demonstrates the ways in which ‘official’ occasions can be employed as a platform to express ‘unofficial’ views. So doing is an opportunity to glimpse a ‘real,’ unmediated or unvarnished view of a place and its people. In this way, both cultural diplomacy and

cultural relations interests can be foregrounded and – to some extent – met.

Both the staging of, and participation in, such events can be read as a cultural-political statement2 as

much as an artistic one, nevertheless the differing approaches taken by countries to the staging of their event/exhibit is illustrative of their broader cultural diplomacy strategy/ambitions. Zaugg and

2 Tang, (2007:373) records that in ‘November 2006, Matija Milovic Biloslava, a Slovenian exchange student at LASALLE-SIA College of Arts, created a work entitled, I am going to send you to a better place, referring to the executioner’s traditional send-off. Newspapers were not allowed to publish images of the piece, an Australian newspaper that tried to do so was allegedly threatened with a legal suit.’