Minor Life in the Embrace
Tenderness is an affect that holds a sense of burden, both symbolic and actual.
Hongjin Zhou • 7/20/26
Ei Arakawa-Nash, Grass Babies, Moon Babies, curated by Horikawa Lisa and Takahashi Mizuki, Pavilion of Japan, 61st Venice Biennale, May 9—November 22, 2026
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On Site is The Curatorial's section for curatorial reviews and a venue for MA Curatorial Practice students at the School of Visual Arts to publish as part of their program, though it is open to all writers.
In this piece, Hongjin Zhou reviews Grass Babies, Moon Babies by Ei Arakawa-Nash at the Japanese Pavilion of the 2026 Venice Biennale, curated by Horikawa Lisa and Takahashi Mizuki. She focuses on its use of participatory interaction to translate the global birth rate crisis into a lived, embodied experience. By inviting visitors to carry weighted baby dolls through the pavilion, the exhibition transforms "care" from an abstract ethical concept into a concrete physical burden, generating spontaneous social exchange in the process. Zhou argues, however, that the exhibition's greatest strength is also its central weakness: its playfulness and entertainment value ultimately dilute engagement with the weighty issues—such as immigration, colonial history, and nuclear disaster—it claims to address, and curatorial decisions around text placement and interactive programming compound this tension.
Ei Arakawa-Nash, Grass Babies, Moon Babies, 2026, installation view, Pavilion of Japan, 61st Venice Biennale. Photo by Uli Holz. Image courtesy The Japan Foundation.
The 61st Venice Biennale, curated by the late Koyo Kouoh as its artistic director, and a team that carried out her plan, takes “In Minor Keys” as its theme and title. It aims to shift the balance from the spectacles of disaster exhausting the world today, advocating instead for people to listen to the minor notes of living, tuning into the sotto voce, the whispers and lower frequencies of the human spirit amid international conflicts, dwindling populations, and anxieties about the future. 1
Though national pavilions in the Biennale are autonomous and hold their own themes, there was a certain resonance with Kouoh’s vision felt in the Japanese Pavilion, where artist Ei Arakawa-Nash’s exhibition, Grass Babies, Moon Babies, created an immersive interactive experience of intimate care. According to the pavilion’s curators, Horikawa Lisa and Takahashi Mizuki, Arakawa-Nash’s show is a direct response to the sharp global decline in birth rates since 2023, a trend highlighted by the the International Monetary Fund that reminds us of our collective responsibility.2 In reaction, the exhibition evinces a kind of softness, even a tenderness in the way that it invites visitors to engage. And yet, in the context of the Biennale’s main exhibition, with its references to the world’s struggles, it may seem mild, even insufficient. But that would miss the cleverness of it, particularly in the way that it transforms the notion of “care,” so intrinsic to child-rearing, from an abstract ethical concept into a concrete and burdensome reality that we have to face.
On entering the pavilion, visitors are invited to pick up and symbolically take care of one of 200 baby dolls on display, carrying it around the building’s lower space, then into the garden, and finally up into the second-floor galleries.3 Not only were there dolls available for “parenting,” they were also playfully placed on scaffolds that had the look of a towering jungle gym, seated on the edge of the pavilion’s roof, and lowered up and down in baskets from one level to the next by guests. Baby carriages were gathered on the ground floor as well. If the pavilion can be understood as our world in miniature, the dolls echo the exhibition’s central propositions: babies are born everywhere… and yet in harrowingly depleted numbers.
Tenderness is, then, an affect that holds a sense of burden, both symbolic and actual. Even though the dolls are harmless in appearance, even amusing, they were physically heavy enough to convey infants’ demand for continuous attention and our ethical requirement to fulfill it. Their weight slowed people down, occupied their hands, and, in fact, distracted attention from the dolls themselves. That is to say, their function here was to serve as symbolic agents of social mediation more than as works of art in themselves. The art was the conversation that emerged between strangers almost automatically, turning the concept of responsibility into a real, on-site interaction. The notion of “minor keys,” of the daily routines of care that fill our lives, was made tangible and relatable, aligning with the Biennale’s introspective tone.
Yet this tenderness is a limitation as much as it is a strength of the exhibition. In its attempt to delve into declining birth rates and related grand issues—such as immigration, conflicts, colonial history, and nuclear disasters—the playful interaction with the dolls, which is so palpable and entertaining, paradoxically weakens the focus on these weighty issues.4 While the show succeeds in its evocation of softness in the experience of caring for a child, this intimacy in caregiving distances us from the broader social concerns.
Ei Arakawa-Nash, Grass Babies, Moon Babies, 2026, installation view, Pavilion of Japan, 61st Venice Biennale. Photo by Uli Holz. Image courtesy The Japan Foundation.
The curatorial execution here contributed to this, too. The wall at the entrance to the second floor is crowded with historical events spanning dates, locations, and occurrences, illustrating the global turbulence contributing to spiraling birth rates, and seeking to generate a sense of empathy from viewers. But the text is too small and dense, and it contains so much information that it’s hard to take it all in—and it’s doubtful that anyone would spend the time to do so. On the one hand, the artist and curators want to create the sense of urgency befitting the population crisis. On the other hand, the curatorial decision to present the text as they did and to place it on the second floor, when people are already immersed in actively carrying their “baby,” means that they may have limited the opportunity for deeper engagement with the discursive aspect of the show.
This was only exacerbated by the entertainment factor they deployed, with other interactive activities including the invitation to visitors to diaper their adopted baby and scan a code to receive a short, personalized poem based on the baby’s birthday.5 Even the exhibition’s web page emphasizes the babies’ personality traits over the significant historical events presented. Arakawa-Nash, Lisa, and Mizuki succeed in playfully captivating their audience at the same time that doing so diminishes the overarching point, with the presentation of the writing not precisely helping their case.6 And there is, of course, the question of what kind of world are we bring children into that also grates against the overall amusement here.
It’s true that within the framework of this year’s Biennale, the sheer fun of the Japanese pavilion is unique. In its favor, it can be said that the pavilion effectively responds to the melancholy on view In Minor Keys. The problem of the way in which it counters its own mission by inadvertently downplaying its grand narrative also reminds us that responsibility does not begin with abstract concepts but with that tiny, yet heavy, life in our arms. If some more dramatic outcome for viewers was intended, the final effect of tenderness touches us, though it fails, ultimately, to shake us.
Ei Arakawa-Nash, Horikawa Lisa, and Takahashi Mizuki. Photo by Ryuichi Maruo. Image courtesy The Japan Foundation.
NOTES
Koyo Kouoh, In Minor Keys (La Biennale di Venezia, 2026), 3–4
Horikawa Lisa and Takahashi Mizuki, “Curatorial Statement,” in Grass Babies, Moon Babies (Japanese Pavilion, La Biennale di Venezia, 2026), 10–13.
The Japan Foundation, “Ei Arakawa-Nash’s Grass Babies, Moon Babies Is Set to Permeate the Peripheries of Japanese Pavilion through a Constellation of Voices and Practices,” press release, March 19, 2026.
Horikawa Lisa and Takahashi Mizuki, “Introduction,” in Grass Babies, Moon Babies (Japanese Pavilion, La Biennale di Venezia, 2026), 16–17.
The Japan Foundation, “Ei Arakawa-Nash’s Grass Babies, Moon Babies Is Set to Permeate the Peripheries of Japan Pavilion through a Constellation of Voices and Practices,” press release, March 19, 2026.
Horikawa Lisa and Takahashi Mizuki, “Curatorial Statement,” in Grass Babies, Moon Babies (Japanese Pavilion, La Biennale di Venezia, 2026), 10.
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Hongjin Zhou is an emerging curator from Chengdu, China, and a current master’s degree student in Curatorial Practice at the School of Visual Arts. Her curatorial practice explores the dialogue between traditional and contemporary art, with a particular interest in how exhibitions can foster cross-cultural understanding and public engagement. From 2023 to 2025, she contributed to exhibitions and public programs at the Sichuan Provincial Cultural Center, working with traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy, intangible cultural heritage, and interdisciplinary cultural exhibitions. Her early experience as a volunteer museum guide continues to shape her commitment to making art and cultural history more accessible to diverse audiences.