The lesbian art collective fierce pussy says its contribution to the Venice Biennale was censored by the city ahead of the exhibition. The New York group, composed of Nancy Brooks Brody, Joy Episalla, Zoe Leonard and Carrie Yamaoka, designed a series of posters intended for pasting across Venice during the 61st edition of the Biennale, currently on view in the city.

One poster carries the line "Welcome queers and trans people" in English and Italian alongside an image of Venice's lion rendered as a cat. Another declares "we are queers and trans people" above a list of everyday occupations, from "your mortician" to "your favorite newscaster," ending with the words "we are everyone." According to the report, the group had planned a citywide wheatpasting campaign but was refused, prompting Episalla to write on Instagram that the work ended up being "censored by the city."

The collective's response was to go rogue: it produced stickers of the designs and affixed small versions to walls, windows and advertising spaces around Venice, posting images of the results online. The gesture continues fierce pussy's decades-long practice of public intervention, which began with wheatpasted posters reclaiming anti-LGBTQ+ language in New York in 1991.

The group has a larger presence at this year's Biennale as well, with the ninth chapter of its ongoing project "arms ache avid aeon" on view in the Giardini, plus a separate installation titled "we are here" made from pieces of a deconstructed Palestinian flag. The censorship claim arrives amid wider tensions around LGBTQ+ rights in Italy, and it is one of several protest gestures artists have staged around the current edition of the exhibition.