Venice, March 27, 2026 — TBA21–Academy has unveiled Tide of Returns, a powerful new exhibition opening on March 28, 2026, at Ocean Space in the historic Church of San Lorenzo, Venice. The exhibition will run until October 11, 2026, in conjunction with the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia.
Conceived by the Repatriates Collective (a group of artists from Australia’s Pacific, North and South Africa, Europe, and Latin America) Tide of Returns offers a collective artistic response to cultural repatriation through ceremonial acts of repair, care, and reclamation.
The exhibition features two major site-specific installations created for the former church: 
- In the West Wing, From My Mother’s Country is an immersive environment combining sand dunes, thousands of handmade ritual dolls crafted from shell and textile, video, and sound. The work draws on Indigenous knowledge systems from both Australia and Namibia, exploring themes of ancestral connection, cultural survival, and the living agency of objects.
- In the East Wing, Verena Melgarejo Weinandt presents Weaving Connections, a textile and three-channel video installation that traces gestures of care, belonging, and collective healing through the ritual of braiding and washing fabrics in water.
Curated by Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll, the exhibition transforms the notion of “return” from a purely political demand into a profound act of cultural healing, intergenerational transmission, and environmental consciousness.
Running alongside the main exhibition in the Research Room is Nature Speaks. Listening for Rights of Nature in Venice and Europe, a policy lab co-produced with NICHE Centre for Environmental Humanities at Ca’ Foscari University, exploring the legal recognition of the Venetian Lagoon as a living entity.
Markus Reymann, Co-Director of TBA21–Academy, notes that the former Church of San Lorenzo (with its layered history of trade, empire, and movement) provides a resonant setting for the Collective’s work on displacement, restitution, and repair.
Tide of Returns continues TBA21–Academy’s long-standing commitment to commissioning artist-driven research that addresses urgent ecological, social, and cultural questions through art.
The exhibition is open to the public from March 28 to October 11, 2026.
