‘In Minor Keys’ Schools at the 61st Venice Biennale

The four African Schools—RAW Material Company in Senegal; Guest Artists Space (G.A.S.) Foundation in Nigeria; blaxTARLINES KUMASI in Ghana; and the Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute in Kenya—sit alongside Denniston Hill in the United States and lugar a dudas in Colombia. What connects these homegrown institutions is an ethos to convene, share knowledge, to stay a while, to take apart, to sow seeds of intent, and build centres that proliferate.

In the Exhibition’s catalogue, Tandzani Dhlakama writes:

“At the core, all are art-centred organisations that focus on and are rooted in collectivity and care. Beyond this are differences in approach and practical programme. But there are reoccurring components: art residencies, spaces for deliberation, gardens, libraries, archives, exhibition offerings, training and exchange”.

Their presence at the Arsenale and Giardini is inseparable from the story of the exhibition's own making. The curatorial process culminated in a significant meeting held in Dakar in April 2025 at RAW Material Company — the cultural centre founded by Kouoh — led by the curator herself, an experience that remains emblematic of the way she conceived curatorial practice.

“The inclusion of the Schools in this Biennale therefore offers context for the numerous movements and makers whose practices have not necessarily been dependant on the so-called global centres such as London, New York City or Paris. It gestures instead towards an essential, multi-layered historical continuum, stemming mainly from the Global South”, writes Dhlakama.

Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute (NCAI) — Nairobi, Kenya

NCAI presents The Enduring Legacy of Makerere University — eight paintings by seven artists who studied and/or taught at the Margaret Trowell School of Fine Art at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, at the Central Pavilion in the Giardini della Biennale. Makerere had an outsized effect on the culture and politics of East Africa, with many of the region's most prominent artists and figures of the post-colonial period having studied there. Above the paintings, Margaret Nagawa created a contextual timeline tracing the artists' lives and work, accompanied by a series of short films on the artists and a new film on NCAI's own journey. 

Guest Artists Space (G.A.S.) Foundation — Lagos & Ikise, Nigeria

Guest Artists Space (G.A.S.) Foundation presents Chorus, a multi-media installation at the Arsenale. Taking as its conceptual point of departure the Yorùbá courtyard — historically a space of gathering, ritual, and intergenerational exchange — the work brings together the voices of former G.A.S. residents and collaborators. Central to the installation is a film presented as channels of sound, washes of colour, and moving image, creating a contemplative, multi-sensory environment in which visitors journey through intersecting dialogues. It offers itself, in the words of the Foundation, as "a shelter within the wider exhibition's own cacophony of interlinking threads." 

blaxTARLINES KUMASI — Kumasi, Ghana

blaxTARLINES KUMASI presents SLOW DOWN: CATTLE BATTLE AHEAD, a project that interweaves emancipatory pedagogy, non-proprietary artistic practices, and social responsibility, at the Arsenale. For In Minor Keys, the collective activates three open-source portals: blaxxRADIO and blaxxMEDIA, offering interviews, pre-recorded audio and livestream infrastructure connecting Venice, Kumasi, Kampala and other stations in the network; and blaxxLIBRARY — subtitled On Ghosts, Resurrections, and Debris from By-passed Futures — a multisensory environment of objects, sounds, books, Braille texts, murals, and video and sound archives.

RAW Material Company — Dakar, Senegal

RAW Material Company presents Ideal Seeds for Fertile Grounds at the Book Pavilion in the Giardini della Biennale. The installation features two films: If Trees Could Talk by Maître Bara Diokhané (Junjube Productions), and Vibrancy of Silence: A Discussion with My Sisters by Dr. Marthe Djilo Kamga and Professor Frieda Ekotto. This participation carries particular meaning as a continuation of Koyo Kouoh's vision, rigour, and enduring commitment to artistic dialogue and critical thought, embodied by the very institution she founded.

Across the Schools, there is a reverence for the minor key as a philosophy that François Vergès names as “borrowing, adaptation, and a dynamic of patching up, making do, of fixing up, of mending.” Across their presentations, above all, the Schools present the collective and infrastructural capacity of artists. 

La Biennale di Venezia runs from Saturday 9 May to Sunday 22 November 2026 at the Giardini and Arsenale venues, in various locations across Venice and at Forte Marghera.