Art Censored in South Africa Will Show in Venice Anyway

A feminist art installation censored by the South African government will display at the Venice Biennale after all, thanks to a surge of activist support that refused to let silenced voices stay silent.

Artist Gabrielle Goliath created "Elegy," a moving performance piece where trained singers sustain single notes until they run out of breath. Each extended exhale honors women and LGBTQIA+ people killed by gender-based and colonial violence around the world.

South Africa's selection committee unanimously chose Elegy to represent the country at the 2026 Venice Biennale. But Arts and Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie overturned the decision, calling it "highly divisive" because it includes Palestinian poet Hiba Abu Nada among the women memorialized.

Abu Nada wrote a poem about refuge just 10 days before dying in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza in 2023. The installation also planned to address South Africa's femicide crisis and historical genocides in Namibia.

The cancellation sparked immediate backlash. Legal teams filed appeals, arts collectives wrote open letters to the president, and feminist activists rallied across social media and news outlets.

The Ripple Effect

That collective outcry turned into concrete action. The London-based arts initiative Ibraaz partnered with South Africa's Bertha Foundation to secure an independent venue for Elegy in Venice.

The performance will now take place at Chiesa di Sant'Antonin, near the official Biennale grounds. Women who were denied official recognition will still be mourned and remembered on an international stage.

The hour-long ritual connects audiences physically through sound and breath, creating what Goliath calls "a site for community and empathetic encounters across difference." Seven vocalists take turns sustaining notes that blur into one continuous sound, their shared breath building solidarity across borders and generations.

Legal efforts continue to reinstate the work's official status, while the independent showing ensures the art's message reaches Venice regardless. Curator Ingrid Masondo and Goliath's legal team are appealing the high court ruling that denied their initial challenge.

What began as government censorship became proof that feminist solidarity can create new pathways when official doors close.