The 131-year history of the Venice Biennale has witnessed many firsts. This year, it was the first time a woman of colour, Koyo Kouoh, had been appointed curator. It was also the first time an Artistic Director died midway through her term, before seeing the completion of the exhibition she conceived, In Minor Keys. Born in Cameroon and raised between Cameroon and Switzerland, Kouoh moved to Dakar, Senegal, where she established herself as an independent curator. She was appointed Artistic Director of the 61st International Art Exhibition in November 2024. Following her death, La Biennale, with the support of her family and team, chose to realise the exhibition according to her vision.
Held from May 9 to November 22, 2026, In Minor Keys turns away from the spectacle and noise of contemporary life, inviting audiences towards quieter registers—listening, contemplation, healing, community, and alternative rhythms of time. The “minor key”, borrowed from music, becomes a metaphor for the hums, silences, and consolations often obscured by louder structures of power and conflict. These quieter spaces become sites of hope, resistance and imagination.
Two India-centric exhibitions were particularly striking: the Indian Pavilion at the Arsenale and a major presentation of Nalini Malani by the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art. The Indian Pavilion, presented by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, and supported by the Ambani Foundation and Serendipity, is curated by Dr Amin Jaffer. Geographies of Distance: Remembering Home brings together five mid-career artists: Alwar Balasubramaniam from Tamil Nadu, Ranjani Shettar from Karnataka, Delhi-based Asim Waqif, Punjab-born Sumakshi Singh and Ladakhi artist Skarma Sonam Tashi. The pavilion brings together five large installations, each exploring home through a distinct material language.
Alwar Balasubramaniam works with soil and clay from his home in rural Tamil Nadu. His fragmented forms evoke a cracked earthen wall, turning material into a vessel for memory and belonging. Sumakshi Singh recreates her family’s ancestral home in Delhi through intricate embroidery. Walls, windows, grilles, and doorways emerge in white lace and thread, transforming architecture into something translucent and spectral.
Ranjani Shettar’s suspended sculptures, woven from cotton, steel and lacquer, evoke flowers, and seed pods, suggesting growth and a quiet relationship with nature. Asim Waqif uses bamboo and vernacular weaving techniques to create monumental structures suggesting scaffolding, shelter and provisional construction. Skarma Sonam Tashi constructs miniature village dwellings from cardboard, clay and papier-mâché. Drawing on Ladakh’s architecture and terrain, his clustered structures evoke settlements shaped by climate, memory and place.
Each installation possesses a distinctive vocabulary. Yet, despite the relevance of Jaffer’s theme and the individual strength of the works, I felt the exhibition did not fully hold its narrative together. The conversation between the installations remained elusive. And yet, I left with a deep sense of pride and joy at seeing five Indian artists pursue their creative languages with such conviction.
The other major Indian presentation is the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art’s exhibition of Nalini Malani at Magazzini del Sale. One of India’s leading multimedia artists, Malani works across theatre, film, video, painting, drawing, and installation. Inspired by Adrienne Rich’s Of Woman Born and the Greek myth of Orestes and Clytemnestra, she examines patriarchal violence, war and the silencing of women.
Her installation brings together 67 animations created from more than 33,000 iPad drawings, projected across nine channels onto salt-encrusted walls and accompanied by a 20-minute soundscape of women’s voices. Her recurring ‘Skipping Girl’, a figure of freedom and resistance, moves through the work as a counterpoint to the surrounding violence. Malani reimagines viraha—separation and longing—as a political and human response to loss caused by war and violence. The result is an immersive universe that held audiences spellbound.
The Biennale leaves one thinking about the many ways art can hold memory, distance, place and belonging. From Kouoh’s invitation to listen to the quieter “minor keys” of our time, to the Indian Pavilion’s explorations of home and Malani’s meditation on loss, these exhibitions suggest that art does not always need to speak loudly to remain powerful. Sometimes, it is through fragments, silences, and memories that the most enduring conversations begin. And that is the lasting pleasure of the Venice Biennale: for over a century, it has not only offered a chance to see some of the world’s most significant art, but has also helped shape what the world recognises as art.
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