Congratulations to the OCAD University alums who are among the artists selected to participate in the prestigious Biennale di Venezia (Venice Biennale)!
Bonnie Devine, professor emerit and the founding chair of the Indigenous Visual Culture program at OCAD U, Alexa Kumiko Hatanaka and Rajni Perera are among the 110 artists selected to participate in the 61st Venice Biennale Arte, widely considered one of the most prestigious art events in the world.
Titled In Minor Keys by Koyo Kouoh, the Venice Biennale Arte is on view from May 9 to Nov. 22. The previous edition of the Biennale Arte drew 700,000 visitors and was referenced in more than 2,500 pieces of media coverage around the world.
This year’s art exhibition is named after the late Koyo Kouoh, a globally influential curator and the first African woman appointed to curate the Venice Biennale. She was known for her significant impact on contemporary African art and for expanding the possibilities for discourses from the Global South.
Kouoh passed away in May 2025. With the full support of her family, the Venice Biennale decided to proceed with her planned exhibition to preserve, enhance and disseminate her ideas and work.
“I am one of 110 artists realizing Kouoh’s vision of a rediscovered cultural landscape,” said Devine. “It is the honour of my life to be included in an undertaking of this scope, an exhibition that maps a geography of the imagination and conceives of a new world that quietly gives place to the fearlessness of art.”
Devine is a visual artist, writer and member of the Anishinaabek of Serpent River First Nation, Genaabaajing. Her work emerges from the storytelling and object-making traditions that are the root of Anishinaabe culture.
Hatanaka works primarily with hand papermaking, natural dye, linocut, gyotaku (printing fish) and washi (Japanese paper). Her work engages with endangered processes that require and contribute to a balanced ecosystem. Hatanaka was recently named to the longlist for the 2026 Sobey Art Award, one of Canada’s most prestigious visual art prizes.
Perera’s multimedia practice explores issues of hybridity, futurity, ancestry, migrant and marginalized identities and cultures, monsters and dream worlds. Her work incorporates drawing, painting, clay, wood, lanterns, sculpture, textile and synthetic taxidermy. Perera was among the finalists for the Sobey Art Award in 2021.
In addition to the 110 selected artists, Czech sculptor Richard Štipl, who attended the Ontario College of Art (now OCAD U), is among the artists included in The Only True Protest Is Beauty, an exhibition inspired by activist Phil Ochs and curated by Dries Van Noten with Geert Bruloot.
OCAD U-affiliated artists in the Toronto Biennial of Art
Closer to home, several artists associated with OCAD U are participating in the Toronto Biennial of Art, which opens Sept. 26 and runs until Dec. 20.
The Toronto Biennial is an international visual arts event held every two years. It commissions artists to create new works for a citywide exhibition in dialogue with Toronto’s diverse local contexts. Launched in 2019, the Toronto Biennial’s free, inclusive and accessible contemporary art programming has attracted more than a million visitors since its inception.
The 2026 edition, titled Things Fall Apart, is curated by Allison Glenn and features several artists from across the OCAD U community. The artists include:
Alum Rouzbeh Akhbari, an artist, filmmaker and human geographer based between Toronto and Lisbon. His practice combines documentary storytelling, fieldwork and poetic speculation across film and installation. Akhbari’s work investigates the political and ecological entanglements of trade and infrastructures across various geographies.
Rebecca Belmore, an internationally recognized multidisciplinary artist and a member of the Lac Seul First Nation (Anishinaabe). She is known for her work in sculpture, installation, video, photography and performance. Central to her work is the body in relation to history, place and Indigeneity. Belmore received an honorary doctorate from OCAD U in 2005.
OCAD U Associate Professor Emerit Bonnie Devine, who is also participating in the Venice Biennale, is known for her cross-disciplinary practice combining writing, sculpture, painting and performance.
Kent Monkman, an interdisciplinary Cree visual artist, is known for his provocative reinterpretations of romantic North American landscapes. Monkman explores themes of colonization, sexuality, loss and resilience – the complexities of historic and contemporary Indigenous experience – in a variety of mediums. Monkman received an honorary doctorate from OCAD U in 2017.
Alum Chiedza Pasipanodya, a sculptor and writer whose practice examines material culture, diasporic memory and the transformative potential of ritual and form. They draw from Afro-diasporic and speculative frameworks to explore how objects become vessels for lived histories and cultural transmission.
OCAD U congratulates all the artists featured in the 2026 Toronto Biennale!
