NEW YORK, NY, April 16, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Third Space Art Foundation today announced 1922 Revisited, a live arts program to be presented during the preview of the 61st edition of the Venice Biennale (May 5–9, 2026). Curated by art historian Dr. Janine A. Sytsma, the program brings together performance artists from across Africa and its diasporas to intervene in the fragmentary archive for the 1922 exhibition of African art.
On its surface, the exhibition aligned with early twentieth-century efforts to reclassify and elevate select forms of African cultural production as art. Yet this gesture was fraught with contradiction: even as it acknowledged African artistic creativity, it reinforced the racial hierarchies that underpinned the colonial world order.
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Artists such as Jelili Atiku, Tsedaye Makonnen, Jermay Michael Gabriel, Va-Bene Fiatsi (crazinisT artist), Zora Snake, Wura-Natasha Ogunji, ruby onyinyechi amanze, and Bernard Akoi-Jackson intervene in the discursive field, interrogating how African art was framed within this discursive space and creating pathways for narrating these histories anew.
According to Curator Janine Sytsma, the program operates in dialogue with Artistic Director Koyo Kouoh’s vision of the Biennale, “opening up space for ‘repairing wounds and worlds.’”
The initiative is presented by Third Space Art Foundation in collaboration with the African Art in Venice Forum and the European Cultural Centre, with additional institutional and academic partnerships supporting research, programming, and documentation.
Extending the live program, an edited volume titled Harmonies of Repair: Revisiting the 1922 Exhibition of African Art Through Performance at the Venice Biennale is in development, amplifying the project’s critical inquiries through scholarly essays, artist reflections, and curatorial perspectives.
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About Third Space Art Foundation
Third Space Art Foundation is a nonprofit organization supporting artistic exchange and collective engagement through the cultivation of third spaces, dynamic zones of encounter, negotiation, and creative transformation. Drawing from the widely embraced concept of third space as a site for dialogue, and Homi Bhabha’s decolonial theory of third space as a liminal ground that challenges fixed hierarchies and dominant narratives, Third Space Art Foundation advances practices that expand cultural understanding and foster new frameworks for connection. Through colloquia, exhibitions, residencies, and other collaborative initiatives, it brings together artists, curators, and scholars across geographic and cultural divides, working to catalyze critical inquiry, mutual understanding, and new structures of solidarity.
To learn more visit: https://thirdspaceartfoundation.org/
- Jelili Atiku @ 1922 Revisited; Live Performance at Venice Biennale 2026