The 2026 Biennale takes shape around In Minor Keys, the theme and title of the exhibition conceived by curator Koyo Kouoh. Her project invites us to listen to what usually remains in the background: subtle vibrations, lateral narratives, forms of sensibility that do not seek the center of the stage. We asked some Biennale Arte artists how this idea of the “minor” resonates with their way of thinking about and making art. In their words, the “minor” becomes source of power for Nolan Oswald Dennis, traces of memory for Mohammed Joha, attention and play for Nina Katchadourian, care and genealogy for Natalia Lassalle-Morillo. But also silent resistance, wounded history, the un-invented image, meaning that surfaces over time, as suggested by Manuel Mathieu, Avi Mograbi, Alan Phelan, and Raed Yassin. The result is a mosaic of interpretations in which the minor does not diminish, but opens new spaces of comprehension.
NOLAN OSWALD DENNIS
Art as an echo of the world
For me artwork is mostly suggestion and reflection, an echo of the world itself. A small part of a much bigger question. Koyo Kouoh’s theme reminds us that smallness is also a source of power, in art practices it resonates with the value of looking and listening closely, hearing the things that seem inaudible, or seeing things that seem invisible, and importantly sharing them with others. Staying with the trouble of the minor keys lets us recognize the otherwise hidden politics and poetics that haunt us.
MOHAMMED JOHA
Reassembling the fragments
The theme In Minor Keys resonates directly with my project No Shelter, which emerges from fragments of materials and traces of memory that are often overlooked or made invisible. I work with reclaimed materials – fabric, paper, cardboard, and plastic – reassembling them through collage as a response to what has been destroyed in both place and architecture. The work is rooted in my experience from Gaza. Although I have lived in Europe for more than twenty years, Gaza remains central to my practice. The loss of some of my family members, home, and hundreds of artworks has turned sewing and reconstruction into a daily artistic language, where memory becomes a material rather than an abstract idea. In this sense, “no shelter” refers not only to displacement but to a broader existential condition: without houses, yet not without a homeland. The “minor” becomes a space of survival, where life persists in fragments, residues, and unfinished form.
NINA KATCHADOURIAN
Play is a serious matter
Much of my work is inspired by things that surround us but that we rarely pay attention to, and I try to make a case for having a closer look. Begun in 2010, my project Seat Assignment, for instance, is the result of eleven years of making art using only my cell phone and whatever materials were around me on every flight I took during that time. I wanted to test what might be possible under those circumstances, even within the temporal, spatial, material, and social constraints of an airplane cabin. For this Biennale, my focus is on play, which, although it may sound like a light-hearted or frivolous thing, is in fact a form of research – and some of the most serious subjects can sometimes only be approached in this spirit.
NATALIA LASSALLE-MORILLO
A different kind of relationality
Since the moment I first read Koyo’s curatorial text, I was deeply moved by her proposal of the minor key as a metaphor for a different kind of relationality – one grounded in care and in the affective bonds we develop in communion with others. Or, to quote Koyo, “to find the oases, the islands, where the dignity of all living beings is safeguarded.” For the Biennale, I’m presenting a project developed in collaboration with my mother, Gloria Morillo. This project spans over ten years of thinking and working together (though I would argue our collaboration started 35 years ago, the day she gave birth me). I consider our process as one of the islands Koyo describes in her text – a territory where my mother and I could realign her relationship to her past, together, and by doing so, attempt to break cycles of generational inheritance. Building complicity and familial relations with collaborators is a slow, quiet, and rigorous process, one that I try to protect from the rhythms and pressures of the art world.
MANUEL MATHIEU
Beauty is hidden
Making art, in my opinion, is something that happens in the margins, out of sight. Beauty is hidden. Choosing to focus on that suggests that Koyo understands where the process begins. In a way, this decision is an attempt to stay as close as possible to the work itself, before it begins to act on the world, or the world on it. The most precious aspects of our survival lie in our capacity to translate our existence – through those quiet forms of resistance that dominant narratives try to silence. I want my abstract paintings to create conditions for perception where viewers can step back and recognize patterns across time, seeing how violence interrupts continuity and leaves lasting voids in historical collective memory.
AVI MOGRABI
Seeking the “minor” in the midst of destruction
Koyo Kouoh’s invitation to think in a minor key is, in a sense, an opportunity for me to go fourteen years back to one of my most intimate works, Once I Entered A Garden, and to draw out a thread from it that speaks to our current catastrophic moment. It is also an opportunity to find a way to express the horror of genocide without surrendering to the pornography of images we live under the attack of. To seek the minor key in the midst of destruction is not a simple challenge, but a political decision – one that aligns with both my work as a filmmaker and my long-standing engagement as an activist.
ALAN PHELAN
“Un-inventing” images
My Joly screen photographs revisit a forgotten method of colour photography, a minor note in the history of photography but one that was invented in Dublin where I am from. They are small illuminated images that demand a closer look. But there is a visual contradiction as the closer you get, the less you see, as the lined filter interrupts the detail. There is also a colour shift as there are two layers in the photograph that mismatch when you move. This helps ‘un-invent’ photography, questioning its authority further by layered timelines and multiple visual reference points. It’s also grounded in humour and respect for tradition. What I love about Koyo’s approach is that it is rooted in so many cultural practices that add complexity and compassion as well as dignity and equity.
RAED YASSIN
A space of gentle resistance
The idea of the “minor” resonates with how I think about art as something that works quietly rather than declaratively. I’m drawn to gestures that don’t demand attention but instead settle over time, shifting perception in ways that are subtle yet lasting. Making art, for me, is like planting small seeds across different spaces and contexts, without control over how or when they will take root, trusting that time will shape their meaning. This approach aligns with a sensitivity to what exists in the background tones, narratives, and emotions that don’t resolve neatly or present clear conclusions, but instead linger and remain open. I’m interested in that space of gentle resistance, where things are not fully defined, where memory, awareness, and ambiguity coexist. It reflects a way of engaging with the world where meaning is not immediate or singular, but something that unfolds gradually, often outside the center, in quieter and less visible ways.
