Haiti Pavilion 2026: Yelena's Garden, 2025-2026

On the occasion of the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, the Republic of Haiti presents Yelena’s Garden, an installation by artist Enock Placide, curated by Mario Savini. About The participation of the Republic of Haiti in the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia is part of a broader strategy of cultural diplomacy and international dialogue, aimed at promoting Haitian contemporary art on the global stage and fostering cultural exchange through artistic research. Yelena’s Garden unfolds as a space of passage and relation, a perceptual field in which painting, moving image, and interaction converge to redefine the relationship between the visible and the invisible. The installation is composed of a constellation of elements—rectangular and circular canvases, a double-sided painted panel, a glass sphere, and a video—arranged in an open hexagonal configuration that does not establish a fixed perimeter but instead suggests a mental geometry that is unstable and relational. Rejecting any privileged point of view, the work invites visitors to move through the space, to alter the arrangement of the elements, and to experiment with ever-changing configurations. In this sense, Yelena’s Garden takes shape as an open and processual system, in which the image is never definitive but emerges through gesture and the temporality of experience. On a painterly level, Placide adopts a delicate and pulsating brushstroke that transforms a naturalistic sensibility into an intense chromatic register. The rectangular canvases, dedicated to the phases of sunset, evoke a phenomenological and everyday dimension, while the circular canvases, inspired by cosmic phenomena, introduce a more abstract and speculative imagery. Between the micro-event of earthly perception and the vastness of the cosmos, a perceptual threshold opens up across the entire installation. Read more Toggle Painting Installation