Resident blogger Jelena Sofronijevic shares their research relating Jagoda Buić and Lubaina Himid at the Venice Biennale, as part of their British Council Venice Fellowship in May 2026.

In May 2026, I am joining a cohort of Venice Fellows who will represent the UK at the British Pavilion at the 61st International Art Exhibition, whilst developing our own creative and research projects during a one-month residency in Venice.

As exhibition ambassadors, we invigilate the galleries, engage visiting members of the public, and create moments of intercultural dialogue and connection. During our time in Venice, we also have the opportunity to develop our own research and creative projects, using the Biennale as a platform for artistic, scholarly, and professional development. Through these contributions, often created in collaboration with one another, we enable the British Pavilion to become an important reference point for universities, artists, and creative organisations around the world.

Jagoda Buić, Exhibition Catalogue, Venice Biennale (1970).

To prepare for a month in Venice, we have participated in a six-week online Induction programme focused on forging and deepening intercultural connections with one another. Through storytelling, deep listening exercises, and honest exploration into creative and collaborative processes, we have been encouraged to nurture our skills, including empathy, intercultural fluency, and teamwork. We have also received training for our role as invigilators for the British Pavilion, during which we have considered different ways to create welcoming art spaces and greet people who may not speak our language, or who have vastly different levels of art experiences and expertise.

In small groups, and with industry experts serving as mentors, we have been encouraged to share the seeds of our creative and scholarly projects which we will develop while in Venice. I have also facilitated an in conversation with Lubaina Himid, the 2026 Artist, to delve into the core themes of the exhibition and the many ways the viewers might respond.

Recording the EMPIRE LINES podcast with Lubaina Himid at the Holburne Museum in Bath (2023).

On our return home from Venice, we have been invited to co-design showcasing events to share their experiences and their projects and continue to co-create and convene beyond the Fellowships Programme. There are sixty Venice Fellows, and other participants from Scotland include: Catriona Anderson (Glasgow School of Art), Connie Woods (Outer Spaces), Ronan Deane Donnachie (Glasgow School of Art), Tulla Burnet (University of St Andrews), Darcey Bateson (University of St Andrews), and Kialy Tihngang (The Collective Makers).

Below is more from my proposal, in partnership with HomeGrown Plus:

During this Fellowship, I intend to develop my research into Jagoda Buić (1930-2022), a monumental textile artist and fibre sculptor who worked across contexts including Yugoslavia (present-day Croatia), France, and Italy. Jagoda’s work featured in the Venice Biennale in 1968, 1970, and 2001, and she represented Yugoslavia at the 13th São Paulo Biennial in 1975, where she was awarded the Grand Prize Itamaraty. In these same years, beyond Brazil, Jagoda simultaneously constructed ‘environments’ in Edinburgh, Dublin, Belfast, Paris, Lausanne, and other places. Fifty years later, very little about these exhibitions – or the connections between them – is presently available for public access. Through my own curatorial and writing practices, I seek to redress this absence by similarly working across and constellating archives, collections, and communities.

This research strongly relates to Lubaina’s work with textiles, theatre, and set design, her commitment to platforming fellow artist women, and interest in port cities as meeting points. I look forward to learning more about Jagoda’s connection with Venice, a city where she lived, worked, and ultimately, passed. This will involve visiting the former International Centre of Arts and Costume, where she studied in the 1950s, the galleries and spaces of her exhibitions, and her former places of residence – one of which inaugurates in 2026. I hope to have the opportunity to meet more of those who knew her in life.

I am interested in opportunities to exhibit existing works and archive materials, along with new findings from my Fellowship in Venice – with and within one of Jagoda’s own communities.

Find out more about the Venice Fellowships and the UK at the Venice Biennale here.

Jelena Sofronijevic (@empirelinespodcast) is a producer, curator, writer, and researcher, working at the intersections of cultural history, politics, and the arts. Their independent curatorial projects include exhibitions like Invasion Ecology (2024), SEEDLINGS: Diasporic Imaginaries (2025), and Can We Stop Killing Each Other? at the Sainsbury Centre (2025), and they produce EMPIRE LINES, a podcast which uncovers the unexpected flows of empires through art. Jelena is pursuing a practice-based PhD with Gray’s School of Art, curating exhibitions of Balkan and Yugoslavian/diasporic artists in British art collections.