Maja Malou Lyse – Things to Come

Maja Malou Lyse draws on science and technology when she stages the looming fertility crisis in the exhibition alongside a surprising study showing how erotic images can affect not just human senses, but our biology – and this raises questions in an entirely new way about the power of the image and its significance for us as a species.

In ’Things to Come’, the decline in sperm quality is treated not merely as a biological crisis, but as a metaphor for a broader civilisational collapse. Harmful substances, screen addiction, cognitive exhaustion and the erosion of intimacy mirror a society in which reproduction, relationships and working life are undergoing rapid transformation.

The exhibition is curated by Chus Martínez and developed in collaboration with the architects Common Accounts and the art collective DIS.

The exhibition can be experienced at the Venice Biennale from 9 May to 22 November 2026.

Photo: Zoe Chait.