On Thursday morning, Ukrainians in various cities awoke to explosions as the Russian military initiated an invasion of the neighbouring country by land, sea and air. In the early hours of the assault, its implications for the Ukrainian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, which opens in April 2022, might have seemed like an afterthought. But Russia’s total war on Ukraine promises to have total consequences, not just for the Russian stock market and the energy supply of central Europe, but also for the Ukrainian cultural sector.