At the Italian Pavilion of the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, an exhibition entirely conceived and created by women.
It is not only an artistic experience, but an invitation to explore the mutual transformation between the human and the other, in all its forms. This is the meaning of “Con te con tutto“, a project curated by Cecilia Canziani and created by artist Chiara Camoni.
From 9 May to 22 November 2026, the Italian Pavilion at the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia will host the exhibition, which will occupy the Tese dell’Arsenale. Entirely conceived and created by women, it stands out for its innovative approach, promoting a profound reflection on our way of being in the world and encouraging dialogue, responsibility and connection with other forms of life.
According to the artist, the title itself expresses a very clear idea: “Con te, con tutto is a declaration of openness both towards the other — understood as another human being, another person — and towards the whole world, everything that is other than oneself.”
Canziani describes the project as a single installation in which body and sculpture interact, inviting the viewer to enter into a relationship with the works and take part in a process of dialogue and contemplation. “Con te con tutto is a call to gather, an invitation to build a different way of being in the world, starting from encounter and sharing with all living things, leaving space for wonder, feeling, dialogue, contemplation and the flow of time that transforms everything,” the curator explains.
“A declaration as intimate as it is universal,” says Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, president of Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia, “one that fully captures the essential spirit: a return to origins, to the zero degree of humanity.”
This vision is shared by Angelo Piero Cappello, commissioner of the Italian Pavilion and director-general for Contemporary Creativity at the Italian Ministry of Culture, who states: “The Italian Pavilion at Biennale Arte 2026 stems from a precise cultural choice: to support research capable of bringing together tradition and contemporaneity, sculptural memory and experimentation. Chiara Camoni’s project, curated by Cecilia Canziani, places artistic making back at the centre as a shared practice, where craftsmanship, relationship and responsibility are woven together in a deeply contemporary language.”
The works created specifically for the occasion include the practices of reuse and resemanticisation that are typical of Camoni’s work. The first Tesa hosts more than 20 ceramic statues, forming a “forest” of figures inmetamorphosis, decorated with natural materials and fragments of plastic. They invite the public into a silent dialogue and into a relationship with these minor divinities.
The second Tesa unfolds as a world under construction, composed of natural elements, artefacts and recycled objects that continue and expand the artist’s reflection on matter. Connecting the two spaces are large reclining female figures modelled in terracotta, while the “domestic architectures” host Dialoghi, a project conceived by Fiammetta Griccioli and Lucia Aspesi, which places Camoni in dialogue with other languages and figures.
The previously unseen Canti fossili by Annamaria Ajmone and Che cosa resta by Alice Rohrwacher further enrich the dialogue between sculpture, dance and cinema. At the centre of the second Tesa, a square opens up, surrounded by seating, where the public can reflect on the garden as a symbol of the connection between the eternal time of sculpture, the flow of human life and the perpetual cycle of nature.
Beyond the artistic dimension, accessibility is one of the main objectives of Con te con tutto. In collaboration with the Scuola nazionale del patrimonio e delle attività culturali and Cooperativa Sociale Trieste Integrazione – ANFFAS, the Pavilion is designed to be accessible to everyone. This also includes Ciao!, a project by Fondazione Amplifon that will make the exhibition accessible remotely to more than 330 care homes.
Alongside the exhibition, a public programme of meetings will be developed in collaboration with Lungomare, curated by Angelika Burtscher and Daniele Lupo. It will unfold across three events in June, September and October, following three thematic lines: “The wild, the oneiric, the disastrous” from 26 to 28 June; “The different forms of intelligence” from 25 to 26 September; and “Vocal practices and collective narratives” from 29 to 31 October.
Cover image: © Camilla Maria Santini
