As Somalia’s first-ever national pavilion debuts at the 61st Venice Biennale, a coalition of local cultural organizations says that artists based in the country “were not meaningfully consulted, included, or recognised in a process that should have belonged to the nation more broadly.”

Last month, the Somalia Arts Foundation (SAF), the country’s self-coined first contemporary art institution , issued a statement denouncing the absence of Somalia-based artists from the pavilion’s artist lineup , which included only artists living in diaspora. In a separate missive , the Somali queer collective Warbixinta Cidda decried the appointment of Italian graphic designer Fabio Scrivanti as the pavilion’s co-curator, citing Italy’s colonization of the region beginning in the 19th century.

“That [curatorial] dynamic is particularly difficult to separate from the historical relationship between Somalia and Italy, given Italy’s role as a former colonial power in Somalia,” SAF Founder and Executive Director Sagal Ali told…