The Venice Biennale offers a unique perspective on contemporary art from around the globe, and in each edition, we look forward to seeing the growing list of ICI collaborators who are involved in its exhibition and national pavilions. The representation of ICI's network in the Biennale, including nearly a dozen curators of national pavilions in 2026, strengthens the power of their independent voices and reflects on ICI as a meaningful force for cultural exchange internationally.
The 61st Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, In Minor Keys, holds special significance for us because it was curated by long-time ICI collaborator Koyo Kouoh. In 2013, just five years after she founded RAW Material Company in Dakar, Koyo was invited to present on her work as part of ICI's Curator's Perspective talk series in New York. She contributed to several Curatorial Intensives—as faculty in Johannesburg (2013) and Moscow (2014), and as a co-organizer in Dakar in 2016 with RAW Material Company—and presented a second Curator's Perspective talk in 2022 in conversation with Daouda Keïta, having recently become Director of Zeitz MOCAA. Following her untimely passing in 2025, Koyo's vision for the Biennale was realized by a team of her close collaborators, including ICI alum and Fellow Marie Hélène Pereira (alum Johannesburg 2013; Curatorial Research Fellow 2021; Intensive faculty Kampala 2022).
In Minor Keys also features many ICI collaborators: independent organizations like Denniston Hill and RAW Material Company; mentors and collaborators such as Annalee Davis (Intensive faculty New Orleans 2019) and Sofia Gallisá Muriente (Seminar faculty San Juan 2016, Intensive faculty New Orleans 2018); artists featured in traveling exhibitions across our 50-year history including Laurie Anderson (VIDEOART U.S.A., ICI's first traveling exhibition), Nina Katchadourian (Space is the Place), Kambui Olujimi (FAX), Ebony G. Patterson and Cauleen Smith (EN MAS'); and artists featured in our current exhibition Actions for the Earth—Pauline Oliveros, Tabita Rezaire, and Himali Singh Soin & David Soin Tappeser—as well as Pio Abad and Guadalupe Maravilla in our upcoming exhibition Remittance.
