Kyiv's M17 Contemporary Art Center will open a new exhibition, Minor Keys School, on July 30, drawing inspiration from the 2026 Venice Biennale while exploring themes of healing, imagination and artistic dialogue.
Rather than serving as a direct response to this year's Biennale, the exhibition seeks to create a symbolic connection between Ukraine and Italy by linking the Dnieper River with the Venetian Lagoon. The project is inspired by In Minor Keys, the Biennale's central theme developed by the late curator Koyo Kouoh, which emphasizes ecological humanism, coexistence and the value of life.
According to the curators, the exhibition reinterprets the idea of the "minor key" not as a symbol of sadness, but as a space for reflection, inner balance and hope.
The project transforms M17 into what organizers describe as a "Minor Keys School"—an experimental ecosystem where artists and visitors engage in shared learning through contemporary art, sound, movement, poetry and meditation. Visitors will be guided through a series of immersive spaces designed for contemplation, interaction and creative exploration.
The exhibition also establishes a dialogue between Ukrainian artists and participants in the Venice Biennale through thematic sections such as Magical Beasts, Living Canvas and Frequencies of the Soul. The experience concludes in the center's courtyard, where an installation inspired by a Creole garden invites visitors to pause and reconnect with themselves.
Participants: Antonia Banitska, Oksana Briukhovetska, Natalia Diachok and Dmytro Matiukhin, and Eugene Pylinsky and Andrii Moroz, Dmytro Erlikh and Illia Petrov, Anatoly Gankevich, Ganna Gidora, Oleg Golosiy, Egor Guschin, Yuliia Holub, Nelli Isupova, Viktoriia Kalashnyk, Alina Khorolska, Dariia Korniichuk, Natalia Lisova, Marta Nyrkova and Vlad Filonenko, Mykola Peremyshliev, Anastasiia Podervianska, Maria Prymachenko, Andrii Siderskyi, Oksana Solop, Tiberiy Szilvashi, Bogdan Tomashevsky, Ruslan Tremba, Anatolii Tverdy, Iryna Vodolazhchenko, Yuliya Wimmerlin, Oksana Zhurakovska
Curators: Natalia Shpytkovska, Yuliya Bukus
Exhibition Project Team: Fedir Sehin, Maryna Kulibaba, Alina Khorolska, Dmytro Lazarevych, Alla Podshyvalkina, and Pavlo Shevchuk.
Olfactory Partner: Aroma Fields, a Ukrainian essential oils brand. https://aromafields.com.ua/
The exhibition project at M17 Contemporary Art Centre is supported by the Adamovskiy Foundation.
Opening: 30 July, 6:30 pm
Venue: M17 Contemporary Art Center
102–104 Antonovycha Street, Kyiv
Admission is free with prior registration
M17 Contemporary Art Center is a cultural institution that functions as an educational and research platform, an exhibition venue for Ukrainian and foreign contemporary art. The activities of the Center are aimed at creating a dialogue space for professional circles and all the representatives of the culture sector as a whole, at study and research of contemporary and related historical cultural processes. M17 supports art experiments, collaborations and international exchanges of experts, artists from various art fields, in order to integrate Ukrainian art into the world context.
Adamovskiy Foundation is a non-profit foundation founded in 2018 by businessman Andriy Adamovskiy. The Foundation’s activities are aimed at preserving and studying the cultural heritage of Ukraine and Eastern Europe. The Foundation’s mission is to promote culture and art as a guarantee of sustainable and enlightened development of society. The Foundation is actively involved in organising and supporting exhibition projects, publishing initiatives, educational and discussion platforms, international forums and expert sessions.
