The artists representing Scotland at the 51st Venice Biennale, the world’s most important showcase for contemporary art, are Alex Pollard, Cathy Wilkes, and Joanne Tatham and Tom O’Sullivan. In a project entitled Selective Memory, curators Jason E Bowman and Rachel Bradley seek to encourage the public to explore the notion of artistic labour and the process of making art.

All artists are based in Glasgow and have exhibited internationally (for examples of their work see http://www.scotlandandvenicebiennale.com). Alex Pollard’s work focuses on systems of communication; his exhibition will develop his recent work using cut-up and customised antique articulated rulers, transforming them to create objects that form structures and ways of communicating with the viewer. Cathy Wilkes’ work is informed by feminism; she produces sculpture, paints and writes as well as creating detailed installations that combine each of these elements.

Joanne Tatham and Tom O’Sullivan work collaboratively. Their work is concerned with the mythic potential of art, and how art can exist as an event in a particular space and time. Their show, A routine sequence of external actions, will be a choreography of various sculptures and motifs that exist both within and outwith the exhibition space. They will also have a spectacular outdoor work adjacent to the Giardini. Their ‘Heroin Kills’ gold necklace was part of the 2003 Zenomap presentation from Scotland.

Each artist has developed what is an ‘expanded practice’, adding to the social vibrancy of their community through their roles as ‘cultural development agents’, and the exhibition is accompanied by a guide featuring specially-commissioned texts.

Curators Jason E Bowman and Rachel Bradley said: ‘Scotland is home to one of the world’s most stimulating contemporary art scenes; the artists chosen reflect this vitality and the project is about the cultural role of artistic practice and its impact on the development of Scotland’s greater cultural fabric.’

Following the exhibition in Venice, which runs from 10 June until 6 November, audiences in Scotland will have an opportunity to see Selective Memory at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh in December 2005.

Selective Memory follows the highly acclaimed Zenomap exhibition in 2003, the first presentation of contemporary art from Scotland undertaken by the Scottish Arts Council and British Council, which featured work by Claire Barclay, Jim Lambie and Simon Starling. Scottish artists have shown work at the Venice Biennale since 1897. The Scottish artist Mark Boyle represented Britain in 1978, and since then David Mach, Arthur Watson, Kate Whiteford, Douglas Gordon, Christine Borland and Roderick Buchanan, among others, have participated. This year will be the first time that presentations from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are all complementing the British Pavilion at this prestigious event.

Scottish Arts Council Chairman Richard Holloway, speaking on behalf of the initiating and funding partnership which comprises the Scottish Arts Council, National Galleries of Scotland and British Council, said: ‘Scotland has an international reputation for excellence in the visual arts, and the Venice Biennale is a wonderful opportunity to highlight the outstanding quality of its artists, to promote the strongest and most interesting work being made in Scotland today, and to strengthen long-term relationships between artists in Scotland and galleries worldwide.’