Canada's entry at Venice Biennale shows how glass beads shaped the modern world

Over the years, 60 Canadian artists have won the honour of showing their work in a small, angular, wood-and-glass pavilion that sits on the end of the Venice lagoon.

The beads provide the opening glance of Trinket by Hamilton-born, Paris-based artist Kapwani Kiwanga, Canada's representative at this year's Venice Biennale, the world's most prestigious art show.

The conterie, from the Portuguese word "to count," were exchanged for everything from tropical wood to gold that was brought to Europe and used to construct and adorn everything from chairs in homes to soaring cathedrals.

In the South American and African communities the beads were traded, though, they disrupted local economies and social cohesion, says Kiwanga, whose work is concerned primarily with power imbalances, from the geopolitical to the institutional.

They take the form of everything from wafting, diaphanous, desert-coloured sheets and gleaming sculptures to pairing colours used by industrial designers to create moods or control movement in offices, psychiatric wards and prisons.

In Trinket, as well as in an exhibit that was part of a group show at the last Venice Biennale, Kiwanga often hones in on a particular aspect or material related to colonial and mercantile economies.