Agenda

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As part of the public program of the solo exhibition ARCHIVIO, at the State Archives of Venice (17 April–31 July 2026), the renowned artist-photographer Dayanita Singh will deliver a lectio magistralis offering an in-depth reflection on her work. The lecture will feature a conversation between Singh and Professors Cristina Baldacci and Stefania Portinari, followed by a Q&A session with the audience. The event, which complements the conversation between the artist and the writer Geoff Dyer scheduled as part of Incroci di Civiltà / Crossroads of Civilizations as a further opportunity for exchange and in-depth discussion, will highlight the central role of archives not only in relation to memory and history, but also their importance for the future, at a historical moment in which—due to political, ideological, environmental, and technological factors—the modern archival paradigm is undergoing profound reconsideration, bringing its critical issues and fragilities into sharper focus.

Dayanita Singh. ARCHIVIO
The solo exhibition of Dayanita Singh (New Delhi, 1961) celebrates the importance of archives, which collect and preserve the memory of people, cities, regions, and nations, along with the documents that recount their histories and exchanges across time. Alongside a selection of images produced by the artist-photographer in major Italian State Archives—from Venice to Rome, from Naples to Florence—the exhibition will present photographs of archival collections from both Italy and India. Singh’s photographic works will be displayed both in special pillars—column-like structures she devised that function as visual devices—and through other exhibitionary and narrative modes, including the book form, which the artist particularly favors as it allows her to experiment with different ways of producing and viewing photography. As she herself has stated: “an exhibition is the catalogue of the works of the book.” Dayanita Singh. Archivio is organized in collaboration with the State Archives of Venice and curated by Andrea Anastasio, Director of the Italian Cultural Institute in New Delhi. It will open to the public on 17 April and remain on view until 31 July. 

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Dayanita Singh studied visual communication at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, later specializing in photojournalism and documentary photography at the International Center of Photography in New York. She uses photography to reflect on and deepen our understanding of the ways in which we relate to images. Her recent works, drawn from her extensive photographic practice, take the form of a series of mobile museums that allow images to be modified, sequenced, archived, and displayed. Emerging from her interest in the archive, Singh’s “museums” present her photographs as interconnected bodies of work, rich in both poetic and narrative possibilities. Museum of Chance (2013), for instance, can exist either as two immense pillars or as a series of flat screens that become tables around which visitors are invited to sit and converse. Dayanita Singh returns to Venice and Ca’ Foscari University following a presentation of her work in dialogue with Orhan Pamuk, held in 2017 as part of the Waterlines project.