Inside the densest week Venice sees all year
The exhibition runs 16–30 November 2026, with two days either side for set-up and de-install, opening to the public on 18 November. The 61st Venice Biennale, "In Minor Keys," runs 9 May–22 November 2026, and the exhibition's four-day Live Programme is timed to land inside the Biennale's final, highest-traffic days — placing it inside the densest concentration of international press, curators, and collectors that Venice sees all year.
Invited Artists as Judges
A small number of artists chosen for the depth and urgency of their work, presented with full curatorial framing.
Open Call
Open to independent practitioners across performance, moving image, installation, and object-based work, from any geography, selected through curatorial review for risk-taking and formal experimentation.
A first look at this edition's invited artists
Bon Music Vision create experiences of recognition with works that aim to understand and question perceptual convention and consensus reality. Exploring cultural shift through both traditional and emerging media, their work is created through a mixed-heritage, diasporic lens and engages the interplay between the individual and broader society. The microcosm and macrocosm are not separate phenomena but correspondences; to make visible the pattern at one scale is to make visible the pattern at all scales. The practice questions the distinction between appearance and ultimate truth.
Paola Estrella is a Mexican multimedia artist based in London, working across painting, video, installation, and performance rooted in speculative fiction. An ICA resident artist (2025–26) with the collective Diasporas Now, she has performed at CCA Goldsmiths, South London Gallery, and V&A East. Her work has been shown at Saatchi Gallery, New Contemporaries, and the Museum of Mexico City. She holds an MA from the Royal College of Art.
Sebastian Alabaster is a London-based painter, curator, and Camberwell College of Arts graduate. His large-scale monochrome acrylics explore identity and faith, reimagining classical and biblical narratives in modern figuration. Recently exhibiting at the Royal Academy Summer Show, Reference Point, and Greatorex, his practice spans portraiture and installation. He co-founded the curatorial agency Morisot, received the Ethereal Maison Venice residency, and hosts educational talks with The Courtauld and Warburg Institutes.
Alejandro Sánchez Caballero develops an artistic practice spanning the performing arts, performance, and writing. His research centres on the bull, an essentially Hispanic symbol, as a totemic figure through which he explores new forms of rituality in response to contemporary nihilism. The body becomes the primary site of performative action — a space of transmutation where Butoh and dance theatre shape a language permeated by the symbolic, the tragic, and the sacred.
Madame Lalá is a Cuban-heritage, Central Saint Martins-trained multidisciplinary artist based in Madrid and London. Drawing on Cuban Santería and occultism to explore diaspora identity, her practice spans performance, installation, and poetry. A resident artist with La Juan Gallery, she has performed at Teatros del Canal, the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum, and recently debuted live art pieces in Barcelona. She authored Sincretismos del Amor and co-founded the collective Opus Magnum.
Laura Rikman is a Madrid-based artist specialising in miniatures, working as an engraver for the Royal Mint of Spain (FNMT-RCM). Her focus lies in small-format graphic art — engraving security documents such as postage stamps alongside delicate hand-painted and engraved miniatures. Her work is held in permanent collections including the Museo Casa de la Moneda in Madrid. She has participated in international art exchanges and exhibitions. Beyond her official engraving duties, she designs and crafts unique, miniature-featured jewellery collections.
