Canada

Over the past two decades, Abbas Akhavan has honed a poetic and thoughtfully site-specific practice. With each project, he enters into a protracted conversation with a place: its architecture, economies, human and non-human inhabitants and their rhythms. Gardens and organic matter in general – along with cultural heritage and historical iconography, particularly the fluidity of symbols throughout history, contexts and conflicts – have been recurrent preoccupations and foundational themes in his work.

For Entre chien et loup, Akhavan reimagines the Canada pavilion’s architecture as a Wardian case: a precursor to the terrarium used to transport plants throughout the British Empire. With a custom pool outfitted with grow lights to present giant water lilies of the genus Victoria, the pavilion also evokes the Crystal Palace of 1851 in London, where the plant was prominently displayed. Native to South America, the water lilies were a natural wonder of the Victorian era. Named in homage to the Queen, they are considered her emblem.

By re-presenting them within the pavilion of a Commonwealth country established under the reign of their namesake, Akhavan offers a meditative space in which to revisit a pivotal moment in world history and to consider how we position ourselves today in relation to our natural and built environments.