VENICE.- The 12th CEI Venice Forum for Contemporary Art Curators from Central Eastern Europe is scheduled for Friday, May 8, 2026, running from 2 to 6pm at the Auditorium of the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice (Fondamenta Zattere Allo Spirito Santo, 423). The event will also be live webcast.

The Forum will discuss “Criteria of Memoria. Navigating Memory and Preservation in Contemporary Art.”

The 2026 meeting is a CEI Co-operation Activity and a Continental Breakfast project organised by Trieste Contemporanea under the patronage of the Central European Initiative, the Italian National Commission for UNESCO, the Regione del Veneto, the Città Metropolitana di Venezia, the Comune di Venezia, the Comune di Trieste, the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and the University of Trieste. The initiative is made possible with the support of the Central European Initiative and the co-financing of the Regione Friuli Venezia Giulia, and in collaboration with the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice and the ICA–Institute for Contemporary Art Zagreb.

The forum

The CEI Venice Forum for Contemporary Art Curators is a biennial event, closely linked with the pre-opening days of the Biennale Arte Venezia, that has been addressing the promotion of art and contemporary culture, as well as facilitating the exchange of curatorial practices since 2001. This initiative welcomes art curators and professionals from Central Eastern Europe, as well as commissioners of the Venice Biennale responsible for the national pavilions of the CEE countries. It stands as one of the primary international activities within Trieste Contemporanea’s “Dialogues with the Art of Central Eastern Europe” program, which was initiated in 1995. The meeting has been a CEI Co-operation Activity since 2003.

Criteria of Memoria. Navigating Memory and Preservation in Contemporary Art.
In recent decades, the art world has witnessed a significant and rapid increase in the creation of artefacts and art-related projects, leading to an overwhelming abundance of cultural material that challenges traditional modes of preservation and archiving. Archiving is a critical and active process in this context. It involves not only the collection and storage of materials but also the careful organization, categorization, and contextualization that enable artworks and cultural objects to be accessed and understood by future generations. Yet, archiving is inherently selective and shaped by social, cultural, and institutional values that influence which narratives are preserved and which are marginalized or forgotten. Participants in the 2026 meeting are invited to share, discuss and engage in a dialogue about the critical processes behind curation, preservation and the legacy of cultural artefacts and, of course, on the models of making new projects and new understanding of the construtcion of memory in contemporary art. —from the introductory text by Janka Vukmir, 2026 Venice Forum convenor.

The speakers: Konstantin Akinsha, Ukraine. Nataša Bodrožić, Croatia. Iara Bounbnova, Bulgaria. Dejvi Dauti, Albania. Dessislava Dimova, Bulgaria. Irfan Hošić, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Adrianna Wiktoria Kowalik, Poland. Lilijana Stepančić, Slovenia. Darko Šimičić, Croatia.