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I’d first heard of Faiza Butt when the novelist H.M. Naqvi had told me that her artwork was being used on the cover of his rollicking debut novel Home Boy (2009). The HarperCollins India edition of that book boasted a striking image that showcased Faiza’s now signature style, which sees her put her own distinctive spin on the painstaking Indo-Persian par dokht [pointillism] miniature technique.
Fast-forward 16 years, Faiza is now set to represent Pakistan at the 61st Venice Biennale (VB), arguably the most prestigious and influential event on the global contemporary art calendar, which kicks off on May 9 this year. Titled ‘Punj •AB — A Sublime Terrain’, this year’s Pakistan Pavilion, curated by Beatriz Cifuentes Feliciano, marks only the second time the country has participated in the VB. Hence, the expectations and anticipation are, naturally, quite high.
There is a particular kind of pressure that descends upon an artist when the work stops being entirely ‘their own.’ “Artists are mostly quite egocentric,” Faiza says with her characteristic candour. “They have these ideas and then they exhibit those ideas. But when given this opportunity, I felt rather overwhelmed upon realising that this is not the ‘Faiza Butt Pavilion.’ It’s the Pakistan Pavilion.”
Faiza, with the shrewdness of someone who has been attending the VB for the past 12 years, describes it as “a cultural event disguised as an art event.” In fact, she is no stranger to having her works displayed in Venice. But staging a pavilion at the VB is a different beast altogether. It is, as she puts it, the “Olympics of the art world.”
As Pakistan gets ready to participate in the Venice Biennale for only the second time, Eos speaks with Faiza Butt, the artist representing Pakistan at the exhibition
Nations arrive at the VB not only to showcase artistic excellence but to signal national identity and relevance. For countries such as Pakistan, participation itself is fraught with logistical, financial and bureaucratic challenges — which would explain why this is only Pakistan’s second time participating. “It’s a very expensive endeavour,” Faiza explains, noting the layers of institutional validation and funding required before an artist is even selected.
But the greater challenge, for her, is conceptual. The risk of turning a national pavilion into a “vanity show” is something she has consciously resisted. Instead, Faiza has approached the pavilion as both a responsibility and an opportunity to create something that speaks to the world but also returns inwards.
Born and raised in Lahore and a graduate of the National College of Arts (NCA), and later the Slade School of Fine Art in London, Faiza is now based in London. “Migration is in my DNA,” she says. “My great-grandparents migrated, my grandparents migrated, my parents migrated and I migrated also.” That continued sense of family lineage and history is what led her to crafting the theme for this year’s Pakistan Pavilion.
Faced with the impossibility of representing Pakistan in its entirety, Faiza chose to focus on what she is familiar with, stating, “I cannot talk about Balochistan. I cannot talk about Sindh. So, I better talk about what I know.” In Faiza’s hands, focusing on Punjab becomes a way to explore broader questions of history, identity and memory through a specific, lived terrain. Through her works at the Pakistan Pavilion, Faiza intends to trace an arc that she describes as a “string of pearls”, in an attempt to connect fragments of history that are often overlooked or excluded from official narratives.
In doing so, she also wishes to challenge the narrow framing of history within Pakistan’s state curriculum, which she argues offers only a partial understanding of identity. She says, “Our version of history sort of starts from Muhammad bin Qasim and then moves on to the Mughals and then Partition. And I don’t think that’s enough to create a naturally profound mind or to help us understand who we are. So, my attention [for the Pakistan Pavilion] is on the chapters of Punjab’s history that are not focused on enough.”
Faiza tentatively shares a central motif from this year’s Pakistan Pavilion, revealing, “I think, maybe just to excite the audience, I can give you a few clues [about what to expect]. We are honing in on the notion of agriculture and, through it, we are honing in on the notion of cotton. We’re picking history through the root of cotton.”
To my ears, this sounds like a bit of an intriguing departure from some of Faiza’s previous works and, in many ways, that is exactly what she is hoping for. As Faiza puts it, the biennale is not just a platform to showcase past achievements but a space to “break ground” as an artist. “I have a fear of stagnation,” she says. “I like scientists. One should keep researching. One should keep bringing something new to the pool of information.”
The venue for the Pakistan Pavilion is the Ex Farmacia Solveni, a stately space built in the Venetian tradition. “Venice was never meant to be a gallery or a museum,” Faiza notes. “But Venice is a museum. Venice is a work of art. How do you put works of art in a work of art?”
Her answer to this is to work with scale, colour, light, the moving image and projection. Thus, she has a designer helping her realise her vision, because this kind of show is as much about spatial choreography as it is about individual artworks.
Importantly, her familiarity with the city affords her a uniquely useful vantage point. “I think I’m quite fortunate that this was entrusted to me,” she says, “perhaps because I have a lot of experience of showing in Venice. If you just throw someone in there and tell them to just go and do something, there’s a huge possibility they’d get it wrong. And you better not get things wrong at the Venice Biennale.”
Faiza is clear that this cannot be a “bombastic show” that dazzles in Venice and then disappears. She hopes the work will have a life beyond Venice and will one day travel to Pakistan, engaging local audiences, while contributing something of value to broader conversations about history, identity and culture.
She is not, she insists, in Venice to simply wave a flag. She wants to offer something that will outlast the biennale and serve as a meditation on a region of extraordinary richness and complexity. Knowing Faiza and her artistic trajectory, odds are that she’ll pull it off.
Originally published in Dawn, EOS, April 19th, 2026
Cover: Curated by Beatriz Cifuentes Feliciano (left), the Pakistan Pavilion is titled ‘Punj•AB — A Sublime Terrain’ | Photo courtesy Faiza Butt