We Are All Nauru

SPECIAL CUT TEASER

This special online teaser offers a first glimpse of "We Are All Nauru" without revealing or altering the spatial and experiential dimensions of the original installation. Conceived specifically for digital presentation, it serves as an invitation to encounter the work in its complete form at the National Pavilion of Nauru at the 2026 Venice Art Biennale, where the two-channel video installation unfolds through its physical scale, architectural placement, and immersive dialogue between the projections.

• Artwork installed at the National Pavilion of Nauru at the 2026 Venice Art Biennale.

Stefano Cagol, 'We Are All Nauru', 2024–2025
4K two-channel video installation, 10 min / loop

"We Are All Nauru" is an epic two-channel video installation conceived as a confrontation between distant yet deeply interconnected geographies. Installed at an angle, the two projections immerse viewers in contrasting environmental realities: on one side, the refineries, industrial infrastructures and petrochemical landscapes of Houston, Texas; on the other, the icebergs and glacial horizons of Ilulissat, Greenland. Between extraction and melting, energy production and climate disruption, the work constructs a visual geography of the Anthropocene.

Moving between Greenland and Texas, Stefano Cagol stages symbolic acts of environmental violence, resource hunger and supremacy. Summoning seas of fog in his passage and wielding sweet-smelling spray cans like firearms against the status quo, the artist appears singular and estranged, traversing environmental thresholds where industry and nature collide. These aggressive gestures become metaphors for humanity’s relentless impact on the planet. Carrying this burden as a form of exorcism, Cagol merges myth, ritual and shamanic spell, transforming performance into a reflection on power, responsibility and ecological imbalance.

The angled double projection creates a continuous dialogue between territories that appear remote but are in fact inseparable: the places where resources are extracted, transformed and consumed, and those where the consequences of those processes become dramatically visible. The work deconstructs traditional notions of heroism within a fragile yet universal insular world, threatened by rising waters, environmental degradation and the erosion of collective memory.

Its title invokes Nauru, the world’s smallest island nation, whose landscape and society have been profoundly shaped by more than a century of phosphate extraction. Nauru becomes not only a specific place but also a global condition, a powerful metaphor for a planet confronting the limits of exploitation and the costs of endless growth. In this sense, "We Are All Nauru" suggests that no territory is isolated and that the consequences of extractivism ultimately connect us all.

The work originates from the artist’s long-term saga "We Are the Flood", an ongoing exploration of climate change, environmental transformation and human vulnerability. Yet beyond the inundations, the work also points toward possibility: from the flood, a new way of existing together may still emerge.

Presented at the National Pavilion of Nauru at the 2026 Venice Art Biennale as part of the exhibition "AIM Inundated. Imagining Life After Land", "We Are All Nauru" invites viewers to reflect on interconnected ecologies, shared responsibilities and possible futures in an age of planetary change.