The Exhibition
The eighth edition of Personal Structures, the biennial contemporary art exhibition organised by ECC Italy in Venice, will welcome visitors from 9 May to 22 November 2026. Running alongside La Biennale di Venezia, the exhibition will unfold across three iconic venues, Palazzo Bembo, Palazzo Mora, and the Marinaressa Gardens, offering a vibrant stage for installations, paintings, sculptures, and performances.
Personal Structures 2026 is shaped around the theme Confluences, an image inspired by rivers meeting and generating new currents. The exhibition explores how different artistic practices, cultural backgrounds, and ways of thinking intersect, becoming part of an ever-changing collective fabric. Through this lens, art becomes a means to question the present and imagine future possibilities, where society, nature, and technology meet in an evolving conversation.
To explore past editions of Personal Structures, you can visit the dedicated page.
Multidisciplinary artists and creatives from all over the world
Each edition of Personal Structures brings together multidisciplinary artists and creatives from across the globe, alongside galleries, universities, and cultural institutions. The group exhibition offers a platform for both established and emerging voices, fostering diverse artistic approaches and perspectives to dialogue within an international context. If you are interested in learning more about how to present your work within this framework, feel free to get in touch with us.
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Personal Structures
Since 2011, Personal Structures has been organised every two years by the European Cultural Centre in its venues in the heart of Venice. The biennial exhibition documents the diversity of contemporary art today, featuring different expressions from artists that break away from any ideological, political and geographical barriers.
The project Personal Structures was born in 2002 as an open platform where artists could present their work and thoughts by means of exhibitions, symposia and publications. It was created as a reaction to non-subjective art, to the emerging trend of art without the touch of the artist; a non-personal approach. In response to this impersonalisation of artworks, the European Cultural Centre’s founder and artist René Rietmeyer imagined a project that, on the opposite, states that every artwork, even the most minimalist work, is made intrinsically with a part of the artist’s consciousness, and is thus, somehow, personal.
Exhibition Venues
Our exhibitions take place in the historical venues of Palazzo Bembo and Palazzo Mora and the two public outdoor spaces of Marinaressa Gardens. Visit our iconic spaces in Venice and explore them through virtual tours.
Gallery
Personal Structures on Film
Every year our project is enhanced by a series of videos which delve into our values.
Meet our team and hear what the exhibitors have to say about us and their experiences in Venice. Find out how our exhibitions and activities have developed through the years and what happens behind the scenes at the European Cultural Centre.