Ethnography of the Body and Material — Slowness and Depth in an Accelerated Society, will be presented concurrently with the 61st International Art Exhibition — La Biennale di Venezia, from May 9 to November 22, 2026 at Palazzo Pisani Santa Marina.

Curated by Yuji Akimoto, former Artistic Director of Benesse Art Site Naoshima and Artistic Director of Go for Kogei, the exhibition brings together ten Japanese artists exploring material-driven, craft-based approaches.

Rather than positioning craft as a discrete genre, the exhibition deliberately adopts a craft-based approach as a critical lens through which contemporary art itself can be reread and reinterpreted. Through the artists’ diverse practices, the exhibition offers a quiet yet resolute inquiry into dominant value systems that prioritize speed, visibility, and immediate circulation. The exhibition presents a renewed understanding of contemporary art grounded in deep engagement with materiality, embodied forms of knowledge, and the gradual accumulation of gestures over time.

The exhibition examines how the act of “making” can restore a different sense of time and physical perception within an increasingly accelerated society. Working with materials including clay, glass, fiber, lacquer, earth, water, fire, and the body itself, the ten featured artists foreground slowness, repetition, and manual labor as essential modes of knowledge and experience.

For further details, please visit the special website below.
https://venice.goforkogei.com/