One such platform is Personal Structures, an international exhibition platform organized by the European Cultural Centre and held in parallel with the Venice Biennale.

In 2026, the project unfolds under the theme “Confluences,” proposing to view art as a space where disciplines, memory, technology, geographies, and identities intersect. More than 175 artists from over 40 countries shape a multilayered dialogue about contemporaneity.

Founded as a long-term research initiative in 1998 by Dutch artist René Rietmeyer and developed through exhibitions and philosophical symposia, Personal Structures has evolved into an international platform that brings together art, architecture, critical theory, and research practices.
The first exhibition and symposia took place in 2005 at the Ludwig Museum in Koblenz (Germany).
Over the years, the project has become a stable international platform where artistic installations, research, architectural practices, and conceptual projects coexist.

Since 2011, the project has been part of the collateral events program of the Venice Biennale, and in 2026 it is presented for the eighth time, reaffirming its international status.

Unlike the official Biennale, structured around national representation, the emphasis here shifts toward individual artistic statements, hybrid approaches, and interdisciplinary intersections. This makes Personal Structures particularly significant for artists and curators working with themes of identity, memory, political sensitivity, and cultural transformation.

Today, it is precisely such platforms that register shifts in artistic thinking faster than official institutions, as they operate not through state representation but through the intersection of research practices.
In 2026, the project expands its scope with a new direction, PS Design, exploring the intersections of art, design, and research practices.

Three Spaces as Three Modes of Engaging with Art

The distinctiveness of Personal Structures lies not only in its concept but also in its exhibition architecture. The project unfolds across several venues in Venice, each offering its own mode of experiencing art.

Palazzo Bembo - a historic palace on the Grand Canal - has become one of the project’s key venues. It hosts international exhibitions engaging with contemporary forms of visual expression. It is here that my curatorial project, Crosslines: Unlocked Identities, is presented.

Palazzo Mora - a space of a more experimental character, where traditional architecture enters into dialogue with installations, research-based, and intermedia practices.
Marinaressa Gardens - an open urban environment, a park that allows artworks to move beyond interior spaces and become part of the city’s everyday flow.
This distribution transforms the exhibition into a kind of cultural topography, where the viewer moves between different modes of experience: historical, urban, and contemplative.

Confluences: Art at Points of Intersection

The theme of 2026 addresses the phenomenon of connection and interpenetration. In an era of accelerated migration, digital transformation, and the rethinking of collective identities, the very idea of stable boundaries becomes increasingly untenable.
In this context, art functions not as an illustration of reality, but as a tool for capturing transitional states: between the personal and the collective, the material and the digital, memory and projection.

More about “Unlocked Identities” project

To learn more about the exhibition and its works, you can explore via the link

As part of Personal Structures 2026, I present the curatorial project Crosslines: Unlocked Identities, which explores identity as a system of emotional, cultural, bodily, and digital intersections.

While working on the project, I increasingly found myself thinking of identity not as a fixed category, but as a system of transitions. Perhaps today, the ability to change while preserving an inner core becomes one of the key forms of resistance.
The exhibition brings together four artists, each proposing their own model of identity transformation: from archetypal scenarios of coming of age to explorations of the body, inner space, and cultural simulacra.

Natalya Radünz: On Internal Points of Change

“For me, Crosslines is a project about internal points where a person imperceptibly changes themselves. In the series She Could Fly, I work with the crossroads of a woman’s life: moments of vulnerability, loss, choice, and trust that remain within us and continue to shape us years later…
Personal experience, cultural memory, and inner transformation become a space of dialogue, where each work proposes its own trajectory of becoming.”
Natalya Radünzs’ works approach identity not as a stable condition, but as a slow process of internal shift.

Veera Romanoff: On Resistance as a Form of Identity

Veera Romanoff explores identity as a state of holding form under pressure.
“I do not depict the body; I think through it. Crossline is a series of three works in which transformation unfolds not as a single event, but as a sequence of threshold states, each requiring its own mode of perception.
I work with the body in tension between performativity and presence. The figure holds the inner world from collapse, remaining in a state of extreme resistance. In these works, the body acts as a force that comes into conflict with its own form: it breaks through the оболочка, disrupts boundaries, and resists fixation.”

Alena Rezanova: On the Inner Architecture of Identity

“In my work, I explore identity as an unstable inner architecture that is constantly being reshaped under the influence of memory, experience, and internal conflicts. I am interested in the moment when the former coordinates of the self cease to function, while the new ones have not yet taken shape.
For me, Crosslines is a space of transition, where transformation is not destruction, but a way of reassembling oneself.”

Alina Altukhova: On Cultural Projections and the Construction of Identity

“Through the image of Barbie, I address how mass culture shapes ideas of identity, success, femininity, and the desired future. I am interested in the boundary between authentic identity and the roles that society invites us to assume.
Within the context of Crosslines, I consider identity as the result of a constant collision between personal experience, collective memory, and cultural projections.”

Beyond the Venice Biennale

Today, the significance of Venice is no longer defined solely by the main exhibition route. Increasingly, it is the parallel institutional platforms that become spaces where new artistic languages emerge.

Personal Structures occupies a distinct position in this process - not as an alternative to the official system, but as an independent territory of research, where art is approached прежде всего as a tool for thinking.

If the official Biennale continues to reflect the geopolitical map of the world, Personal Structures increasingly operates with a different kind of map—one of fluid identities, research practices, and new ways of understanding the human condition in an era of constant change.