VENICE.- Photographer Elizabeth Heyert will premier nine works from her new series, The Unborn, during the Venice Biennale in May 2026. Selected as part of Personal Structures, a group exhibition curated by the European Cultural Centre (ECC), Heyert’s work will be shown at the historic Palazzo Mora.

Pe Unborn speaks to the mystery of what makes us human. Heyert’s portraits are about what we are all like before we enter the world. They show us the unseen.
The nine photographs in the series are portraits of pre-natal subjects who were conceived in the first half of the 20th century and died of natural causes. In this original and controversial work of art, we are invited to witness a universal experience—a state that each of us has passed through and of which we have no image or memory.

Heyert views these portraits as bookends to her ongoing exploration of the experience of being human, which began with her renown 2006 series of post-mortem photographs, The Travelers.



Heyert has a nuanced view of what makes a true portrait. Unlike most portrait photographers, she works from the outside as an observer rather than a director. She has photographed people sleeping for hours in her studio, watching and recording them as they were transformed by their subconscious dreams; and people lost in hypnotic trances as they acted out an internal private fantasy. In her most well-known series, The Travelers, she shot formal portraits post-mortem, using the traditional lighting for a portrait of a living subject to uncover the humanity that can be sensed even after life has ebbed away.



Nothing much is known about the figures in The Unborn. Unlike her post-mortem photographs, which were created after the entire story of a human life had been told, with The Unborn we can only guess what these subject’s lives might have been. Heyert’s intention was not to make documents of a physical state but to make portraits that provoke thought and trigger ideas about how we all began.

“Everyone will experience Pe Unborn portraits through the lens of their own emotions” said Heyert. “There is no right or wrong way to respond. Although we can never really know anything about the nine figures in my series, we can each write their stories, if only in our imagination.”



Heyert often uses analog techniques from the 19th and 20th centuries to transform these intimate portraits into an expressive vision. The Unborn photos are platinum palladium prints made on Japanese gampi, echoing the fragility and impermanence of her subjects.

Elizabeth Heyert

Elizabeth Heyert is an American photographer known for experimental portrait projects. Formerly a world-renowned architectural photographer, she established her reputation in the art world with her ground breaking series The Sleepers, The Travelers, The Narcissists, and The Bound. Her photographs are in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Beinecke Library of Rare Books and Manuscripts at Yale University, and numerous private collections. Her books include The Travelers, from her iconic series of post-mortem photographs, The Sleepers, The Narcissists, The Outsider, Metropolitan Places, an anthology of 20th century architecture and design, and The Glasshouse Years, a history of 19th century portrait photography. For more information, go here: https://www.elizabethheyert.com



Personal Structures

From 9 May to 22 November 2026, Personal Structures—Confluences returns to Venice for its eighth edition, organized by the European Cultural Centre Italy. Taking place across the historic venues of Palazzo Bembo, Palazzo Mora, and the Marinaressa Gardens, the international contemporary art exhibition brings together over 150 artists from more than 30 countries. With free admission, open daily from 10.00 am to 6.00 pm (closed on Tuesdays).

Exhibition Details

Preview: 7 and 8 May, 2026 from 2–6pm
Dates: 9 May-22 November 2026
Location: Palazzo Mora, Cannaregio 3659 30121 Venezia Organizers: European Cultural Centre (ECC)