The 2026 Venice Biennale, themed "In Minor Keys" by the late Cameroonian-Swiss curator Koyo Kouoh, features a record fourteen African national pavilions—including first-time participants like Somalia and Tanzania—spread across the city. The exhibition was completed by "Koyo's Team" after Kouoh's death in 2025, with curator Rory Tsapayi emphasizing a sensory, non-didactic approach that decenters traditional power structures.
This edition matters because it marks a historic shift in the Biennale's geopolitics, with African nations asserting their presence in unprecedented numbers and challenging the traditional centrality of European pavilions. Kouoh's legacy—centering marginalized voices and reimagining curatorial practice as attentive to "life and lifeworlds"—is realized through both the main exhibition and the national pavilions, signaling a lasting institutional transformation.