Following the April appointment of Ei Arakawa-Nash as Japan’s representative for the 61st Venice Biennale, the Japan Foundation has announced the co-curators of the Pavilion—Lisa Horikawa, senior curator and director of curatorial and collections at the National Gallery Singapore, and Mizuki Takahashi, executive director and chief curator at the Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile (CHAT) in Hong Kong. Marking the Pavilion’s 70th anniversary, this will be the first edition led by a team based entirely outside Japan—suggesting a broader turn toward diasporic and non-domiciled Japanese voices.

Horikawa, who has worked extensively on Southeast Asian modernisms and their entanglements with colonial histories, noted that Arakawa-Nash’s invitation has prompted her to “imagine the past, present, and future of the Japanese diaspora,” a topic that resonates deeply with her own experience of living abroad. Similarly, Takahashi reflected on the complexity of her Japanese identity as a migrant living in Hong Kong: “Even minor events have made me ponder what is Japanese, what is Japan, and what is a nation or home.” 

Born in Fukushima in 1977, Arakawa‑Nash moved to New York in 1998 before settling in Los Angeles in 2019. Deeply influenced by postwar avant-garde movements—including Japan’s Gutai, New York’s Fluxus, Happenings, Judson Dance Theater, and Viennese Actionism—his work is characterized by improvisation, collaboration, and active audience engagement. This confluence of perspectives between the artist and the curators promises to make the Japan Pavilion not only a site of national representation but also one of global relations. Their shared position “on the periphery of Japan,” as Horikawa puts it, may offer an alternative lens through which to view national identity in an increasingly interconnected and fractured world.

Rooted in performance, parenthood, and diaspora, Arakawa-Nash's creative concept for the Japan Pavilion offers a poignant response to the upcoming Biennale's theme, "In Minor Keys," conceptualized by the late artistic director Koyo Kouoh—potentially extending the notion of “minority” beyond tonal register to encompass affective labor, queer kinship, and fractured national belonging. The exhibition will take place at the Giardini di Castello during the Venice Biennale, from May 9 to November 22, 2026.

Helen Lam is an editorial intern at ArtAsiaPacific.