Tide of Returns

TBA21–Academy opens its 2026 season at Ocean Space with Tide of Returns, an exhibition shaped through the artistic research of the Repatriates Collective. Bringing together artists and Indigenous communities across continents, the project considers repatriation as a cultural, ecological, and emotional act mediated through water.

Inside the former Church of San Lorenzo, immersive installations unfold across both wings. In the west wing, a large-scale environment of sand, shells, textile figures, and sound forms a ceremonial landscape of memory and return. Drawing from Indigenous knowledge systems, the installation connects ancestral storytelling, material culture, and oceanic geographies, framing repatriation as a form of continuity rather than recovery. In the east wing, Verena Melgarejo Weinandt presents a textile and video installation centered on gestures of care. Braided fabrics, flowing water, and performative acts of washing and weaving create a quiet meditation on interconnection, where rivers, bodies, and histories merge into cyclical processes of healing and transmission.