We are pleased to announce the participation of María Magdalena Campos-Pons & Kamaal Malak (KaMag) at the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. The collaborative duo will present new work in this year’s exhibition, alongside a programme of performances during the opening week. Invited last year by their dear friend and colleague Koyo Kouoh, prior to her untimely passing, the duo’s participation carries particular significance.

Following recent participations including Tate Modern’s 25th anniversary programme – with a highlight performance in the Tanks alongside Campos-Pons’s acclaimed installation Matanzas Sound Map (2017) – as well as the São Paulo Bienal, performances at the National Gallery and Somerset House during Frieze London, and Desert X AlUla earlier this year, the duo will bring their distinctive fusion of sound, performance and visual narrative to the lagoon city of shifting light, where East and West converge, this May 2026. 

Since Kouoh’s passing, Campos-Pons and Malak have paid homage to her and her curatorial vision – which continues to shape global conversations around art and the African diaspora – through a series of performative gestures.These respond to Kouoh’s much-quoted reflection:

“I do believe in life after death because I come from an ancestral Black education where we believe in parallel lives and realities. I believe in energies – living or dead – and in cosmic strength.”

This philosophy resonates deeply with the artists’ own commitment to the continuum between ancestral presence and creative force – a central theme within KaMag’s practice and their teaching at Vanderbilt University.

Michael Wellen, Senior Curator, International Art, Tate Modern, has said:

“María Magdalena Campos-Pons is one of the most influential artists since the 1990s, particularly across the Americas. Her work is key to thinking about migration, collective memory, and the role of Black culture in the wider world.”

It has also been announced that Accademia di Belle Arti di Palermo will confer upon María Magdalena Campos-Pons the title of Accademica d’onore, recognising her profound contribution to contemporary art and transnational cultural discourse. 

“Every gesture we make is a call across time – to the ancestors, to those who carried art as resistance, to those who transformed survival into beauty. Our work honours that lineage. As we arrive in Venice, we carry this spirit with us, guided by Koyo’s light and the energies she invoked – living, departed and still unfolding. We believe art holds the power to heal, to connect and to keep memory alive.” KaMag