Arriving in Venice for the vernissage days whilst elections were in full swing, I was surprised to be confronted by a politically charged Biennale. Colonialism, Capitalism, Socialism, contemporary slavery and migration were some of the themes running through the 56th Edition of La Biennale di Venezia, which opened not long after a period of several weeks during which more than 1,800 migrants – many of them African – drowned whilst attempting to flee across the Mediterranean to Europe..