In 2026, TBA21 asks how ecology—understood not simply as the study of relationships between humans, nonhumans, and their environments, but as a practice that shapes governance, accountability, and collective survival—can redefine the role of cultural institutions today. After more than a decade of cultivating what TBA21–Academy has called Oceanic Thinking, the foundation now turns toward a more complex horizon: the entanglement of ecology, violent conflict, and democratic life.
“Ecology challenges institutions to rethink the ways they govern, the alliances they form, and the conflicts they choose to witness,” note TBA21 co-directors Rosa Ferré and Markus Reymann. “The 2026 program asks what becomes possible when we learn to really listen to waters, atmospheres, and communities living with the consequences of war, extraction, and ecological collapse.”
Water as agent of memory and repair
At the center of this year’s trajectory is the belief that relation and attention are forms of activism. The program opens with John Akomfrah’s monumental Listening All Night to the Rain curated by Tarini Malik (Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, until February 8, 2026), where listening becomes a radical ecological gesture. Through sonic “Cantos,” Akomfrah frames sound as a political archive—registering migrations, atmospheric violence, and imperial fragilities.
The oceanic axis deepens with Nadia Huggins & Tessa Mars’s other mountains, adrift beneath the waves, curated by Yina Jiménez Suriel and Juan Canela (Museum of Contemporary Art Panama, March 5–August 16, 2026). Through TBA21–Academy’s curatorial fellowship program The Current IV: Caribbean, the exhibition, which premiered at Ocean Space in Venice in 2025, explores the Caribbean Sea as a repository of memory, identity, and spiritual continuity.
Extending this transoceanic trajectory, 2026 also marks the launch of the fifth cycle of The Current, led by Natasha Ginwala and entitled Ancestral Ocean, which grounds the program in the living archives, cultural kinships, marine conservation strategies, and embodied legacies shaping the Indian Ocean world. The Current V will first emerge as a three-day Convening Marine Intersections and Coastlines as Webs from January 25 to 27, 2026, in collaboration with the Colomboscope festival 'Rhythm Alliances' in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
At Ocean Space in Venice, Tide of Returns (March 28–October 11, 2026) by the Repatriates Collective continues this oceanic thread, bringing together artists, Indigenous communities, and filmmakers from Australia’s Pacific North, South and West Africa, Europe, and Latin America (Britten Syd Andrews, Kasimir Burgess, Joel Kaudife Haikali, Laimi Kakololo, Verena Melgarejo Weinandt, Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll, the Warnindilyakwa, Rebekah Wilson and more). Read alongside Huggins and Mars, the exhibition forms a dialogue between the Caribbean and Indo-Pacific on dispossession and ecological-cultural restitution.
The Mediterranean joins this geography through Moby Dick—The Whale, curated by Ilaria Bonacossa and Marina Avia Estrada (Palazzo Ducale, Genoa, until February 15, 2026). Spanning antiquity to today, the exhibition uses Melville’s myth to examine human–ocean relations through artworks and maritime culture, featuring John Akomfrah, Joan Jonas, Wu Tsang, and others from the TBA21 Collection.
Ecosystems as political actors
The ethics of attention re-emerges in Seba Calfuqueo’s CAUTÍN curated by Marina Avia Estrada (Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, October 6, 2026–January 3, 2027). Through a Mapuche cosmovision, Calfuqueo treats the Cautín River as a sentient being demanding recognition within ecological and political governance. Paired with Akomfrah’s atmospheres, their practices insist that ecological attention can be reparative.
The juridical implications unfold further in Nature Speaks. Listening for Rights of Nature in Venice and Europe (Research Room, Ocean Space, March 28–October 11, 2026), curated by Pietro Consolandi and Amalia Rossi. Focused on Rights of Nature movements, the exhibition asks how rivers, oceans, and forests might enter democratic life as subjects with standing.
Democracy at stake
If the ocean holds memory, conflict marks rupture. At the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Roman Khimei & Yarema Malashchuk’s Pedagogies of War, curated by Chus Martínez (March 3–May 31, 2026), explores how the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine reorganizes perception and public space. The exhibition underscores that ecological practice cannot be separated from political reality, and it resonates with one of Organismo’s case studies, The End of the Real, led by Domestic Data Streamers, which explores the interplay between democratic erosion and post-truth aesthetics.
Activating infrastructural change
Organismo | Art in Applied Critical Ecologies (TBA21–Academy & Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, January–June 2026) forms the program’s infrastructural core. Structured around five case studies—The End of the Real, Planetary Theatre of Tourism, Last Resorts, Premium Stuff, and Florestania—the platform prototypes tools rooted in local contexts and institutional alliances alongside experts and researchers such as Andrea Muniáin, Domestic Data Streamers, Grandeza Studio, Paulo Tavares, and Gary Zhexi Zhang.
The question of transformation culminates in Busan, where Ecological Transformation Through Art (Busan Museum of Art, September 17, 2026–March 14, 2027) advocates for reparative methodologies and multispecies governance, reinforcing TBA21’s commitment to reshaping the structures of cultural institutions.
Taken together, the TBA21’s 2026 program points toward a shared horizon: a world where ecologies, conflicts, and democracies are interdependent, and where repairing one requires attending to all. In this vision, artistic research becomes a tool for governance, capable of turning attention into action.
John Akomfrah: Listening All Night to the Rain
Curated by: Tarini Malik
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid / Until February 8, 2026
Moby Dick—The Whale
Curated by: Ilaria Bonacossa & Marina Avia Estrada
Palazzo Ducale, Genoa / Until February 15, 2026
The Current V—Ancestral Ocean
Curated by: Natasha Ginwala
CONVENING #1: SRI LANKA / January 25–27, 2026
Roman Khimei & Yarema Malashchuk: Pedagogies of War
Curated by: Chus Martínez
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid / March 3–May 31, 2026
Nadia Huggins & Tessa Mars: other mountains, adrift beneath the waves
Curated by: Yina Jiménez Suriel and Juan Canela
Museum of Contemporary Art Panama, Panama City / March 5–August 16, 2026
Repatriates Collective: Tide of Returns
Ocean Space, Venice / March 28–October 11, 2026
Nature Speaks: Nature Speaks. Listening for Rights of Nature in Venice and Europe
Curated by: Pietro Consolandi & Amalia Rossi
Research Room, Ocean Space, Venice / March 28–October 11, 2026
Seba Calfuqueo: CAUTÍN
Curated by: Marina Avia Estrada
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid / October 6, 2026–January 3, 2027
Ecological Transformation Through Art
Busan Museum of Art / September 17, 2026–March 14, 2027
*Image
Top row, from left: Tarini Malik (photo: Francis Tsang), John Akomfrah (photo: Francis Tsang), Marina Avia Estrada (photo: José Alonso de Caso Williams), Ilaria Bonacossa (courtesy of the author), Yina Jiménez Suriel (photo: José Rozón), Natasha Ginwala (photo: Victoria Tomaschko). Second row, from left: Chus Martínez (photo: Nici Jost), Roman Khimei and Yarema Malashchuk (photo: Taras Tarasov), Nadia Huggins (photo: Jacopo Salvi), Tessa Mars (photo: Wendy Désert), Pietro Consolandi (courtesy of the author). Third row, from left: Seba Calfuqeo (photo: Diego Argote), Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll (courtesy of the author), Verena Melgarejo Weinandt (courtesy of the author), Joel Kaudife Haikali (courtesy of the author), Amalia Rossi (courtesy of the author). Fourth row, from left: Marta Handenawer and Paul Aleikum Garcia and / Domestic Data Streamers, (courtesy of the authors), Laimi Kakolo (courtesy of the author), Kasimir Burgess (courtesy of the author), Rebekah Wilson (courtesy of the author). Fifth row, from left: Studio Grandeza (courtesy of the author), Gary Zhexi Zhang (courtesy of the author), Andrea Muniáin (photo: Alejandro Madrid), Paulo Tavares (photo: Gabriel Ribiero), Britten Syd Andrews (courtesy of the author).
