Things to Come. Danish Pavilion by Maja Malou Lyse & Common Accounts

Common Accounts presents the exhibition space “Things To Come” by Danish artist Maja Malou Lyse, on display at the Danish Pavilion of the 61st Venice Biennale, open to the public from May 9 to November 22, 2026. In collaboration with Malou Lyse and curator Chus Martinez, Common Accounts developed a synthetic environment that integrated the artistic interventions into the pavilion's architecture.

The commission for Maja Malou Lyse's pavilion is in keeping with Common Accounts' tradition and a series of projects that have explored the role of the image in survival, as well as the relationship between bodies and hostile environments, such as “Clima Fitness,” “Have a Nice Day,” and “Refresh Renew.”

"Things to Come." Danish Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale by Maja Malou Lyse and Common Accounts. Photograph by Ugo Carmeni.

In the proposal designed by Common Accounts for the artist Maja Malou Lyse, the result is a synthetic pavilion where image and architecture merge.

Screens, both giant and small, constitute a central element of the pavilion. In the elongated Brummer Gallery, a circular installation with multiple screens alludes to both the language of billboards and the immersive glasses used to view virtual pornography, increasingly available in sperm donation centers.

A row of these modified yellow boxes, resembling prefabricated sculptures, allows visitors to view them from the Brummer Gallery. These boxes, used to transport cryogenic containers of sperm, are integrated into the back wall of the pavilion's Koch Gallery.

"Things to Come." Danish Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale by Maja Malou Lyse and Common Accounts. Photograph by Ugo Carmeni.

"Inspired by Lyse's reflections on science, fiction, pornography, and the influence of images, we created an environment of intensified media transmission."

Miles Gertler, Co-Director of Common Accounts

“The environment, where a torrent of color and video offers the visitor instrumental cues, revels in artifice, marking a clear break with the verdant gardens of the Giardini.”

Igor Bragado, Co-Director of Common Accounts

"Things to Come." Danish Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale by Maja Malou Lyse and Common Accounts. Photograph by Ugo Carmeni.

Lyse’s exhibition engages with recent scientific research suggesting that exposure to virtual sexual stimuli can significantly increase sperm motility. This finding offers a striking perspective on how the consumption of images not only influences the imagination or ideology but also penetrates the biological realm.

"Things to Come." Danish Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale by Maja Malou Lyse and Common Accounts. Photograph by Ugo Carmeni.

Against the backdrop of a widely documented global decline in male fertility, “Things To Come” examines the consequences and potential benefits of contemporary media technologies. Science, fiction, and pornography intertwine as image systems that shape how futures are imagined, governed, and lived.

"Things to Come." Danish Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale by Maja Malou Lyse and Common Accounts. Photograph by Ugo Carmeni.

In "Things To Come," the collapse in sperm count is treated not merely as a biological crisis, but as a metaphor for a broader societal breakdown.

Environmental toxicity, screen addiction, cognitive burnout, and the erosion of intimacy reflect a society in which reproduction, relationships, and work are rapidly changing.

Ground floor plan. "Things to Come." Danish Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale by Maja Malou Lyse and Common Accounts.

Section. "Things to Come." Danish Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale by Maja Malou Lyse and Common Accounts.

Axonometry. "Things to Come." Danish Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale by Maja Malou Lyse and Common Accounts.

Diagram. "Things to Come." Danish Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale by Maja Malou Lyse and Common Accounts.

Sketch. "Things to Come." Danish Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale by Maja Malou Lyse and Common Accounts.

Model. "Things to Come." Danish Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale by Maja Malou Lyse and Common Accounts.

"Things to Come." Danish Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale by Maja Malou Lyse and Common Accounts.

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More information

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Exhibition

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"Things to Come." Danish Pavilion at Venice Art Biennale.

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Artist

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Maja Malou Lyse.

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Exhibition design

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Common Accounts.

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Curator

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Chus Martínez.

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Collaborators

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Graphic design.- Studio Claus Due.

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Commissioner

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Danish Arts Foundation.

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Installation execution

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M+B Studio.

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Support

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New Carlsberg Foundation, The Beckett Foundation, The Obel Family Foundation, Copenhagen Contemporary, FAKE Foundation, Danish Agency for Culture and Palaces.

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Dates

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09.05 > 22.11.2026.

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Location

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Danish Pavilion at the Biennale, Venice, Italy.

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Photography

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Ugo Carmeni.

Maja Malou Lyse

Maja Malou Lyse (b. 1993, Denmark) is a multidisciplinary artist whose bold and provocative work dissects the entanglements of desire, power, and mass media. At the core of her practice lies a critical examination of the body's relationship to the image dynamic rendered increasingly complex in the digital age. Lyse interrogates how images, both ubiquitous and unrelenting, shape sexuality, self-perception, and the commodification of identity, while tracing how media, the pornographic image, and cultural history construct and preserve these ideas over time.

Her work situates itself within the very platforms that dominate our visual environment: television, magazines, tabloids, billboards, and social media. By appropriating and reconfiguring these familiar spaces, she performs incisive interventions that unravel the symbiotic relationship between art and media reality. In doing so, she exposes the spectacle that defines contemporary culture: one that seduces as much as it subjugates, embedding itself deep within our collective consciousness.

Led with humour, ambiguity, and the vernacular of pop culture, Lyse's work compels a deeper reckoning with the deluge of visual stimuli saturating modern life. She is recognised for her sharp, critical engagement with the erotic image and the spectacle of mass media—probing how these forces shape desire, identity, and cultural memory. With a fearless commitment to complex and urgent topics, her practice confronts the power of images with equal measures of criticality and wit.

Lyse lives and works between New York City and Copenhagen. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (2022). She has had solo exhibitions at Overgaden (Copenhagen) and Brandts Kunstmuseum (Odense), and participated in group exhibitions at the National Gallery of Denmark (Copenhagen), the Victoria & Albert Museum (London), Copenhagen Contemporary (Copenhagen), Blueproject Foundation (Barcelona), Moderna Museet (Stockholm), ARoS (Aarhus), Kunsthal Charlottenborg (Copenhagen), and Museum of Contemporary Art (Roskilde), among others. From 2018-2019, she hosted Sex med Maja on DR, the Danish Broadcasting Corporation.

In 2026, Lyse will represent Denmark at the Danish Pavilion for the 61st Venice Biennale.

Igor Bragado, Miles Gertler. COMMON ACCOUNTS

Common Accounts is an experimental design studio based in Madrid and Toronto directed by Igor Bragado (Gernika, Spain, 1985. Lives and works in Madrid, Spain) and Miles Gertler (Toronto, Canada, 1990. Lives and works in Toronto, Canada). They explore situations where design intelligence is abundant but under the radar. Trained in architecture but working fluidly between art and design, they channel cultural, technological, and historiographical material into radical architectural proposals, using speculative fiction and drawing upon social narratives and practices from the past to project alternative systems and futures. They shape environments and consult, teach, and inquire into the immediate future of architecture. The studio’s output often materializes in reports, narratives, building, image, installation, and video.

The work of Common Accounts has been recognized with The Architectural League Prize, The Rome Prize from Real Academia de España en Roma, in T Magazine Spain’s 2019 list of influential designers, and in Platform Architecture‘s 2022 round up of 40 under 40 European design practices. Recent exhibitions featuring the work of Common Accounts include Foodscapes, The Spanish Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale (2023); Greater Toronto Art 2021 at MOCA (Toronto); A Section of Now at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (Montreal, 2021); or (Re)Design Death at the Cube Museum (Kerkrade, NL, 2020). Miles Gertler is Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream at the University of Toronto, and Igor Bragado is Adjunct Professor of Design at IE University in Madrid.

Published on: May 6, 2026

Cite:

metalocus, SARA GENT, CAMILA DOYLET

"Things to Come. Danish Pavilion by Maja Malou Lyse & Common Accounts" METALOCUS. Accessed

<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/things-come-danish-pavilion-maja-malou-lyse-common-accounts> ISSN 1139-6415