Tide of Returns
Ocean Space, 2026

Tide of Returns is an exhibition developed through the artistic research of the Repatriates Collective — a collective of artists, filmmakers, and Indigenous communities from Australia's Pacific North, South and West Africa, Europe, and Latin America — curated by Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll. Commissioned and produced by TBA21–Academy, the exhibition opened on 28 March 2026 and runs until 11 October 2026, coinciding with the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia.

Installed across both wings of the former Church of San Lorenzo, the exhibition unfolds as a ceremonial landscape rather than a conventional display. In the west wing, the Repatriates Collective presents From My Mother's Country (2026), an immersive environment of reddish sand transported from Anindilyakwa Country, populated with thousands of handcrafted figures made from shells, grasses, and textile — many recently repatriated from European museum collections — alongside video and sound. In the east wing, German-Bolivian artist Verena Melgarejo Weinandt presents Weaving Connections (2026), a textile and video installation exploring braiding, water, and ancestral practice as forms of cultural continuity and repair. Running concurrently in the Research Room, Nature Speaks. Listening for Rights of Nature in Venice and Europe, curated by Pietro Consolandi and Amalia Rossi, addresses the legal recognition of the Venetian Lagoon as a living entity, co-produced with the NICHE Centre for Environmental Humanities at Ca' Foscari University.

Framing repatriation not as a discrete act of institutional restitution but as an ongoing, polyphonic process shaped by water, ceremony, and community, Tide of Returns continues TBA21–Academy's commitment to art as a site of ecological and epistemic repair.