Pure Land Foundation backs Venice Biennale event on identity and self-definition

The Pure Land Foundation supported a Venice Biennale gathering on Sept. 5 that paired film, discussion and participatory art around identity, reincarnation and self-authorship. The event at Palazzo Soranzo Van Axel extended the foundation’s focus on people reclaiming their stories.

Why it matters: - The Pure Land Foundation is sharpening its cultural mission around identity, recovery and self-definition. - The Venice Biennale setting gave that message a global art-world platform. - The program centered on people who have been misunderstood, judged or reduced to one chapter of their lives.

What happened: - The Pure Land Foundation supported Gathering 4 of the Su Xiaobai Foundation’s Orchid Pavilion programme on 5 September at Palazzo Soranzo Van Axel in Venice. - The event, titled “Voice-over, Magic Mirror,” combined a film screening, a public discussion and participatory creative work. - The gathering took place during the Venice Biennale inside Su Xiaobai’s Alchemical Universe, an exhibition of 35 works and an official Collateral Event of the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. - The Pure Land Foundation supported the gathering as a whole, including the screening, discussion and participatory program. - The Deer of Nine Colors was produced independently.

The details: - Andrew Thomas Huang’s The Deer of Nine Colors followed a Thai trans woman searching for her “true name” through memories and past lives. - The film reworked the Buddhist Jātaka of the compassionate Nine-Coloured Deer through a contemporary, futuristic lens. - After the screening, Huang joined Susie Ferrell of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for a discussion of identity, reincarnation and transformation. - Media artist Vivian Lin led creative exercises in other rooms of the exhibition. - Leone Contini and Kyoko Takenaka were among the invited contributors. - As participants moved through Palazzo Soranzo Van Axel, Su Xiaobai’s works served as a changing backdrop for the evening’s activities. - Su Xiaobai’s Alchemical Universe is presented by the Su Xiaobai Foundation in collaboration with LACMA. - The Orchid Pavilion series is curated by Jenny Lin, PhD, Associate Professor of Critical Studies and Director of the MA Program in Curatorial Practices and the Public Sphere at the University of Southern California Roski School of Art and Design, and inaugural Su Xiaobai Foundation Curatorial Resident.

Between the lines: - The Pure Land Foundation is using art programming to examine how people move beyond identities imposed by others. - The event connects spiritual ideas, queer identity and personal narrative in a way that fits the foundation’s broader focus. - Earlier Pure Land Foundation projects included Queer, Asian & Visible with British-Chinese artist and performer Le Fil, and Buddhist, Queer & Beautiful with Japanese Buddhist monk, makeup artist and LGBTQ+ advocate Kodo Nishimura.

What’s next: - Gathering 4 continues a broader body of work from Bruno Wang and the Pure Land Foundation centered on culture, storytelling and lived experience. - The foundation is likely to keep using collaborative art events to explore identity, meaning and shared humanity. - The Su Xiaobai Foundation will continue its preservation and interpretation work around Su Xiaobai’s art and archives.

The bottom line: - The Venice gathering turned an art event into a conversation about who gets to define a life and how people reclaim that authorship.