Pavel Brăila: On the Thousand and Second Night

The Republic of Moldova presents at the 61st Venice Biennale On the Thousand and Second Night, an exhibition by Pavel Brăila (Republic of Moldova), curated by Adelina Luft (Romania) and supported by the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Now open at Santa Veneranda, at the Chiesa dei Santi Geremia e Lucia, the project marks a significant milestone for the Republic of Moldova and affirms its commitment to international contemporary cultural dialogue. 

Responding to the theme of the 2026 Venice Biennale, In Minor Keys, On the Thousand and Second Night opens a space for reflection in which imagination and material culture operate as forms of continuity within a world undergoing transformation. 

Inside the church, an ensemble of carpets hovers between floor and vault, suspended by drones. The carpet—an object rooted in the domestic sphere, associated with embodied knowledge and continuity—is supported by a technology commonly linked to surveillance, control, and, increasingly, to armed conflict. The installation symbolically reverses roles: the drone no longer restricts or pursues, but supports. For a moment, a technology tied to domination becomes an act of protection, and domestic memory gains the power to keep a shared space suspended in the air. 

On the Thousand and Second Night continues a line of inquiry initiated by Pavel Brăila with Magic Carpet (2018), in which a woven rug was lifted by drones. What once appeared as a poetic image now resonates differently in a world where technology and airspace have become terrains of redefinition. 

Drawing both on the tradition of carpets woven in homes and villages across Moldova—passed down as dowry and preserved as generational memory—and on the Middle Eastern motif of bisat al-rih (the flying carpet), among them from the tales of One Thousand and One Nights, the project reclaims storytelling as a gesture that keeps the possibility of the future open, imagining alternative exits from a world in which borders may shift and security remains fragile. Rather than offering escape, Brăila proposes flight as a metaphor for solidarity and collective imagination.  

“I feel deeply connected to how this work has taken shape. It carries a poetic and emotional weight, while also delivering a strong and direct message. I would rather be working on something else, something not shaped by war. Yet, in moments like this, silence feels inadequate. There is a need to speak, to respond, to make visible what cannot be ignored. Perhaps through such gestures, we contribute to a collective voice—one that insists on change, and holds onto the hope that this thousand and second night will arrive, when we can begin to tell entirely new stories, beyond the shadow of war, violence, and terror,” says Pavel Brăila. 

“On the Thousand and Second Night is an installation built on contrasts: the fairy tale coexists with the nightmare; the world of symbolism within the carpets is interrupted by the sound of drone propellers; the unseen forces of the divine compete with the power of the wicked. Despite the context that fuels our anxieties about the future, we are opening the pavilion with the intention of celebrating life and Moldova’s first official representation at the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia,” adds curator Adelina Luft. 

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