The first shrine I noticed at this year’s Venice Biennale was in the Italian Pavilion.

Chiara Camoni’s installation of ceramic figures, altars, offerings, and gathering spaces became a tribute to Biennale Curator Koyo Kouoh. Memory, gratitude, care, and continuity were embedded throughout all her works and that observation impacted how I saw the rest of Venice.

I knew I would be thinking about legacy and how a show conceived by Koyo and executed by others would be and feel. In the way that only art can work, Koyo conceived the shrines dedicated to Beverly Buchanan and Issa Samb before her own death in May 2025. The installations were places of gathering, memory, and reverence.

I saw something that felt similar in Kathmandu last year, where families gathered to honor their ancestors through rituals woven into daily life. The dead remained present through acts of remembrance and care.

The shrines became a way of understanding the Biennale itself and the continuity of ideas and the people who conceived them.
And honestly, what better way to be remembered.

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