The national shows, or pavilions, at the Venice Biennale, which opens next week, are its most obvious defining attribute.

Every country in the Biennale puts on an exhibition by one or a group of artists, which, whether the artists involved fully embrace it or not, says something about that nation's arts scene: happy, unhappy, vibrant, moribund, inward looking or outward looking. Ever since 1895 when the whole festival began, the permanent national pavilions of the Giardini, a large and rather lovely park area, distinct in the canal city for its earth and trees, birdsong and absence of water, have been at the centre of attention and national and international coverage.

The imposing neo-classical pavilion buildings of the powers of Old Europe in the gardens: France and Germany set up to glower at each other, with Britain in the middle, could sum up for many the discomforting feelings engendered by nation-based art show, when contemporary art, its practitioners and followers tend to believe, usually acts as an eraser of boundaries and borders.

This year those boundaries seem a little fluid. Germany and France, for instance, are swapping buildings, something one cannot imagine happening 50 years ago. And although the current Scotland + Venice set up, led by Creative Scotland and the National Galleries of Scotland and the British Council, is guaranteed to appear again in 2015, in the event of a Yes vote in the independence referendum, this may be the last year of Scotland + Venice as an official 'collateral' show. Two years from now, it could feasibly be a fully national pavilion.

That apparent addressing of the fluidity of identity at this, the 55th International Art Exhibition – a concept which one wonders will hold up under scrutiny once the full festival, which features 88 national shows, 47 collateral events and 150 artists, opens – is also visible in Scotland's show.

The three-artist exhibition marks 10 years since Scotland set up its "independent" show. There is a focus on other cultures in both the work of Duncan Campbell, interviewed in The Herald last month, as well as Corin Sworn's work for the show, which will be launched next week alongside the art of Hayley Tompkins.

Sworn, who was born in London but spent much of her life in Canada and has been based in Glasgow since studying a MFA at The Glasgow School of Art, is presenting work which, among other things, shows slides by her father, Gavin A Smith, of Peru, and images of the village of Huasicancha there in a series of altered photographs. Campbell is presenting a series of ruminations on Chris Marker and Alain Resnais's 1953 essay film Les Statues meurent aussi (Statues also Die) which tackles the effects of colonisation on African artifacts and culture. Tompkins, meanwhile, is presenting a series of floor-mounted paint works over two rooms at the Palazzo Pisani, the 15th-century building where Scotland has sited its last three shows.

When The Herald caught up with Sworn and Tompkins, who was born in England but also studied at the Glasgow School of Art and lives and works in the city, the works had been fully installed and the artists were preparing to meet the press at a preview this coming Monday. Neither has been to the Biennale before, and they are equally looking forward to, and slightly pensive about, the mad scramble of artists, curators, journalists, collectors, and gallerists that make the first week of the Biennale a sweaty, frantic mess of openings, viewings, press events and launches.

"It is extremely exciting to be going. I have never been as an artist or a visitor," Sworn says, when asked about "representing Scotland".

"I think that the idea of nations at all is – in this Biennale – quite fluid. The traditional venues in the Giardini, usually facing each other, are swapping and a lot of the shows seem to be about inter-discourse, rather than about one particular place, which I really like."

Glasgow itself is present in the Palazzo Pisani, with Sworn's fractured display of the tiles from a Glasgow tenement. The slides of her father's work, between 35 and 50 chosen by the artist, date from 1973. She adds: "I think it was really interesting that I had these memories of places that I had never actually been to," she adds. The photographs of Peru split into red, green and blue also play on the drift of memory and place.

Tompkins, pictured, left, is like Sworn, generally happy with a complicated venue, which, with its series of discreet rooms, is essentially three exhibitions in one space.

Her work is placed on the floor, so viewers have to look down at the acrylic paint colour works formed in trays (and not, she notes, out of the window at distracting views of the city).

"I feel happy with what I have made," she says, "And that this is a platform for lots of people to see it. It really feels like a privilege to be part of it.

"I don't see it as representing any country, as such, but it is a show of art that is made in Scotland. I feel very much that my work comes from living in this city, Glasgow, and Glasgow is a Scottish place.

"It is good to be part of this : I was at college with Duncan, for example, and I know his work."

Tompkins adds: "I think it is a good chance for people to see a lot of your work, but at the same time, you could feel a little vulnerable and exposed."

The entire show is coming back to Glasgow, when it will form part of the Generation national exhibition next year, to enable those who cannot make it to the Biennale, which runs until November 24, to see the art on view.

Sworn adds: "I think the whole show has a kind of meandering journey to it. But they have some things in common, it feels like there are communications between all three. It will be interesting – and a wonderful opportunity."

Phil Miller will be reporting from the Venice Biennale for The Herald and Sunday Herald next week.