Lydia Ourahmane presents a solo exhibition, 5 Works, at the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation in Venice from 5 May to 22 November 2026, curated by Polly Staple. The exhibition will coincide with the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia.
Lydia Ourahmane is a conceptual artist whose installations, sculptures, moving image and sound works create situations that have consequences beyond the walls of the institution, while negotiating the terms within. Exploring landscapes of displacement and community, her work examines how the movement of objects and people is influenced by factors such as state restrictions and invisible barriers. Her recent presentations have involved the audience as material, subject and author.
Ourahmane’s new commission follows a residency at the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation in Venice. One of the exhibition’s central premises is that many of the artworks are created in Venice. Ourahmane has worked with Venetian craftspeople and technicians but also collaborated with organisations in the city of Venice and the surrounding region. These individuals and collectives continue to offer extraordinary expertise and comprise a thriving community, providing a concrete alternative to popular images of Venice as a city of tourism and in decline.
5 Works combines a wide range of visceral media – including, for example, antique sculpture moulds, church lighting and decommissioned bed linen – with traditional conceptual gestures such as the recontextualisation of found objects and the presentation of documentary process. Several works in the exhibition are the direct result of negotiations, transactions and exchanges specific to historic sites and activist associations in Venice including Poveglia per tutti, Bancolotto No. 10: Il Cerchio and LSG: Lavanderia Spolaore Giuseppe.
The island of Poveglia has become a muse throughout the making of the exhibition. Situated on the outskirts of the Venice lagoon and largely inaccessible, its history is steeped in myth. The island has recently however been reclaimed by the association Poveglia per tutti (Poveglia for all) which is transforming the site into a public park. A central object commissioned for 5 Works is a fully functioning pier that will be transferred to Poveglia enabling public access by boat from the water to the land.
Ourahmane’s practice is focused on the real politics of daily life as much as exploring how art itself is valued and produced, distributed and displayed. We are living in a new world order in which waste collapses into sublime abstraction for many but remains a brutal reality for others. This requires a shift in perspective. What then is the form for our present moment? At what point does art insert itself into reality? In 5 Works, matter is always negotiating its terms.
