For Ei Arakawa-Nash, representing Japan carries explicit significance. Born in Fukushima Prefecture however now working internationally and now not holding Japanese citizenship, the artist occupies a place hardly ever foregrounded on the pavilion. “The Japan Pavilion hasn’t actually addressed diaspora earlier than,” the artist says. “So I really feel a accountability to symbolize minority voices.”
The venture additionally emerges from private expertise. In 2024, Arakawa-Nash and their associate grew to become mother and father to twins via surrogacy, shaping the exhibition’s central concentrate on care. Greater than 100 child dolls will populate the pavilion, inviting guests to undertake and carry them via the area.
“Care is a social and political construction,” Arakawa-Nash says. “It’s labour, and sometimes it’s carried out by girls, folks of color, or each. I’m hoping to create a platform the place folks can have interaction with care collectively.”
Intimate acts of care
Every doll weighs roughly the identical as a new child child, emphasising the bodily dimension of caregiving. Members who carry the dolls encounter a collection of interactions—together with altering a nappy—via which they obtain a brief “oracular” poem generated from the doll’s assigned birthday. Every birthday corresponds to a traditionally important date linked to minority communities in and past Japan. On this approach, intimate acts of care are related to broader historic narratives.
The work additionally builds on the artist’s longstanding engagement with efficiency traditions that query institutional frameworks. Arakawa-Nash cites precedents together with Yayoi Kusama’s Narcissus Backyard (1966), Rei Naito’s One Place on the Earth (1997) and Arata Isozaki’s structure exhibition in Venice in 1996. “These initiatives had been essential references,” the artist says, noting how they used the pavilion to discover participation and collective expertise.
Blurring boundaries
In Grass Infants, Moon Infants, structure additionally turns into a part of the work. Slightly than treating the pavilion as a closed container, Arakawa-Nash extends the venture into the encompassing backyard and past. “My child dolls will increase past the thought of an establishment as a easy field,” they are saying. The title refers back to the relationship between the pavilion’s structure and its backyard: “grass” symbolises the outside panorama, whereas “moon” evokes time and emotion. Arakawa-Nash describes the work as emphasising the “circulation” between the constructing and backyard—an thought embedded in architect Takamasa Yoshizaka’s unique design.
Past the exhibition, the venture extends via artist-led crowdfunding, collaborations with designers and writers, and neighborhood partnerships in Venice. It should additionally embody a collaboration with the Korean Pavilion—marking the primary such partnership between the 2 nationwide pavilions within the Biennale’s historical past.
Polyphony
For the exhibition’s curators, Lisa Horikawa and Mizuki Takahashi, the venture’s collaborative nature is central. They emphasise how Arakawa-Nash’s observe brings collectively a number of voices and views. In creating the pavilion, they drew on Yoshizaka’s architectural philosophy of “DISCONT”, which imagines a collective entire formed by particular person company. “Ei’s observe is inherently collaborative,” the curators say. “The polyphony that emerges from this course of—along with a robust consciousness of historical past and histories—can kind a resilient and collectively grounded response to up to date political pressures.”
The work emerges in opposition to a posh political backdrop. Japan is comparatively conservative concerning LGBTQ+ rights, with same-sex marriage nonetheless not legally recognised, and conservative political forces have gained renewed affect in recent times. Inside this context, questions round id, belonging and social norms have turn out to be extra pronounced. “As a queer mother or father, my work turns into radicalised within the context of the Japan Pavilion,” Arakawa-Nash says.
Evaluating Japan with neighbouring international locations, the artist notes that “if youlook at Taiwan or Thailand, they’re much extra superior in relation to queer rights”. They add: “I do really feel pissed off. However that frustration grew to become a part of the motivation to create this set up—to consider nurturing a brand new era and a special future.”
