VENICE.- The exhibition, spread across three ven-ues, Palazzo Bembo, Palazzo Mora, and the Marinaressa Gardens, presents works by 175 artists from over 40 countries.

Historical masters such as Keith Haring, ORLAN, Hirohiko Araki, alongside emerging voices, will transform Venice into a labora-tory of visions, practices, and languages.

In Venice, Palazzo Bembo, Palazzo Mora, and the Marinaressa Gardens host, from 9 May to 22 November 2026, the eighth edition of Personal Structures, an international biennial exhibition of contemporary art.

The curatorial team is composed of Elisa Dallanoce, Sara Danieli, Rachele De Stefano, Lucia Pedrana, Claudia Piovan, Sara Serpilli, Micaela Skerl, Lucia Trevisan, and Elena Volpato.

This year’s theme is Confluences, which invites the public to discover the dialogue between different artistic practices, cultures, and creative expressions, highlighting how diverse perspectives can meet and generate new forms and meanings within the global contemporary art landscape.

Personal Structures – Confluences presents works by 175 visual artists, photographers, sculptors, performers, collectives from over 40 countries, including historical masters such as Keith Haring, ORLAN, Hirohiko Araki, and emerging voices that will transform Venice into a laboratory of visions, practices, and languages.

The European Cultural Centre Italy is a cultural organisation working in the fields of art, architecture, and design. Its mission is to realise cultural projects and contemporary art exhibitions conceived as open platforms accessible to all, connecting its three venues: Palazzo Mora, Palazzo Bembo, and the Marinaressa Gardens. Within this framework, it organises the biennial Personal Structures exhibition in Venice, whose theme for this edition is the concept of Confluence. Confluence is understood as a place where differences meet and transform, generating new currents and energies - notes Sara Danieli, Head of Art ECC Italy - and aims to be an invitation to explore the intersections between artistic practices, cultural dialogues, and creative expressions, highlighting how diverse voices and perspectives meet and evolve within the global contemporary art scene.

Palazzo Mora

Among the works in the exhibition path across the three venues, at Palazzo Mora, in collaboration with DTR Modern Galleries, an unprecedented dialogue is presented between Keith Haring, one of the leading figures of street art, and Kozo, pseudonym of Eden Karo (1990), a surrealist tattoo artist among the most innovative internationally, whose language combines classical drawing precision with pop culture, revolutionising tattoo art.

For this occasion, nine works by Kozo, alongside three works by Haring, establish a stimulating exchange between historical relevance and contemporary influence, connecting generations and artistic forms and revealing an ever-evolving visual language.

The rooms of Palazzo Mora also host We Are Inconsolable (2025–2026), the latest series by ORLAN (1947), known for using her own body as artistic material, in which she transforms AI-generated images into painterly interventions where human and algorithmic gestures converge.

Palazzo Mora also hosts one of the collateral events of the Venice Biennale featuring the Palestine Museum US, the first Palestinian contemporary art museum in Europe, based in Edinburgh, whose mission is to share Palestinian history globally through art, highlighting cultural and historical heritage. For the occasion, the Palestine Museum US presents Gaza Genocide Tapestry – “ ” (Gaza – No Words – See the Exhibit), the latest chapter of the Palestine History Tapestry project, composed of 100 hand embroidered panels by women documenting the ongoing destruction of Gaza since October 2023 through tatreez, the traditional Palestinian women’s embroidery practice recognised by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage.

In the same venue, visitors can also see the Pavilion of El Salvador, making its debut at the Venice Biennale, with Cartographies of the Displaced by J. Oscar Molina, curated by Alejandra Cabezas, exploring migration, memory, and identity, focusing on displaced and diasporic communities worldwide. The exhibition presents the sculptural series Children of the World, creating a space for intercultural dialogue. Through sculpture, painting, and installation, the Salvadoran-American artist examines how displacement shapes identity and memory, translating personal and collective stories into a powerful visual narrative.

Palazzo Mora also hosts the National Pavilion of Seychelles at the Venice Biennale, represented by artist Egbert Marday, whose practice spans wood carving, sculpture, and painting, guided by an inner necessity and a deep connection to natural materials.

For the first time, Personal Structures introduces a new section dedicated to contemporary design practices titled PS Design. The initiative presents a series of projects by nine designers—Uncommon Creative Studio, Gjertrud Hals, Charlotte Lancelot, Lara Bohinc, A + N Studio, Yiannis Ghikas, Fredrikson Stallard, Special Project, Studio Waldemeyer—which, in line with the theme Confluences, create immersive atmospheres exploring the interplay between function, expression, and narrative. The works selected by the ECC Italy Curatorial Team also address social and technological issues, positioning design as a creative and critical practice.

Palazzo Bembo

At Palazzo Bembo, in world premiere, Personal Structures, in collaboration with the Japanese publisher Shueisha, presents JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure by Hirohiko Araki (1960), a Japanese manga artist known for his distinctive style, imaginative storytelling, and inventive use of fashion, anatomy, and poses, which have become iconic in manga and global pop culture.

The exhibition revolves around 27 works, including lithographs, lenticular works with three-dimensional imagery, archival inkjet colour prints, and monochrome flat prints.

Among the Special Projects of Personal Structures is the participation of B-OWND, a Japanese curatorial platform and gallery interpreting the theme Confluences through works by seven artists - Art Collective Tea Room, Yoshiaki Imamura, Takahiro Koga, Tomoya Sakai, Kengo Takahashi, Hiromine Nakamura, Tanabe Chikuunsai IV - creating a journey between art, craft, and hybrid practices.

This is joined by the special project Unison by Rita Sabo, which weaves together fifteen cultures in which past, present, and future coexist, transforming painting, sculpture, installation, fragrance, and sound into a multisensory environment.

Marinaressa Gardens

At the Marinaressa Gardens, featured artists include Indian artist Paresh Maity (1965), with Equilibrium, a monumental brass sculpture composed of linear planes and vertical axes suggesting a geometric structure, and Bahraini artist Rashid Al Khalifa (1952), presenting Inhabited Crate, an installation that also functions as an active element of its environment, composed of modular metal cubes.

The European Cultural Centre Italy promotes the new edition of the ECC Awards, celebrating the richness and complexity of contemporary art in line with the curatorial vision of Personal Structures – Confluences. For the 2026 edition, ECC Italy, together with an international jury – composed of Nargess Banks, writer and editorial director in art, design, and visual culture; Jesús Alberto Flores, cultural strategist for emerging artists; Rahul Gudipudi, researcher, storyteller, and senior curator at CARA, the Center for Art, Research, and Alliances; Euijung McGillis, assistant curator at the National Gallery of Canada; and Anouska Phizacklea, director of the Museum of Australian Photography and co-chair of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival – will award projects in several categories including Artistic Interpretation of the Theme, Curatorial Research & Project, Space & Context Project, Interdisciplinary Project, Emerging Practices, and the Artist as Activist Special Award.

The awards highlight artistic approaches that transform diversity into opportunities for connection, exchange, and growth, valuing research, social impact, awareness of place, and interdisciplinarity, core values of ECC Italy in the Venetian context. Winners will be announced at the closing of the exhibition.