VENICE.- Georgian artist Tamara Kvesitadze unveils Medea: Fragments of Memory, a new site-specific exhibition conceived for the historic spaces of Palazzo Bragadin. Curated by Eka Enukidze and Hervé Mikaeloff, the exhibition runs from May 9 through October 31, 2026, immersing visitors in a poetic and haunting reflection on memory, exile, transformation, and identity.

The exhibition is supported by Kornfeld Gallery Berlin, Atelier Visconti and David Bezhuashvili Education Foundation. The opening drew an international crowd of gallerists, curators, collectors, and artists from Venice and abroad, confirming the strong anticipation surrounding the project. Already compelling in its conceptual and visual power, the exhibition was further enhanced by the refined atmosphere of Palazzo Bragadin — an elegant Venetian residence whose intimate rooms and lived-in charm created the ideal setting for Kvesitadze’s immersive works.

Widely recognized as one of the leading figures in contemporary kinetic art, Kvesitadze has represented Georgia twice at the Venice Biennale and is internationally celebrated for sculptures that acquire emotional and symbolic intensity through movement. Beneath the technological sophistication of her installations lies a deeper philosophical dimension rooted in Georgian history, mythology, and collective memory.

The exhibition’s title refers to Medea, the mythological figure deeply connected to the ancient kingdom of Colchis, located in present-day western Georgia. Daughter of King Aeëtes and granddaughter of the Sun, in Kvesitadze’s interpretation, Medea becomes more than a mythological character: she embodies exile, fragmentation, displacement, and the impossibility of fully belonging to one place.

At the center of the exhibition stands a striking installation inspired by Venice itself, which the artist describes as “one of the most vulnerable incarnations of architectural memory: a city built on water, existing between preservation and disappearance.” Constructed from simple plywood geometries, a model city slowly rises and dissolves in a continuous cycle, evoking memory as something unstable, transient, and perpetually shifting between appearance and disappearance.

Large suspended panels of red and blue paper line the space with fissures, traces, and layered surfaces that resemble archaeological sediments of time. These abstract works suggest what remains after erosion, trauma, and historical transformation. Medea emerges within this environment not as a fixed image but as an echo carried across civilizations and languages, altered yet persistent.

Near the entrance, visitors encounter Reptile, a kinetic sculpture stretching from floor to ceiling. Composed of fragmented female feet, the elongated red form evokes mutation, survival, and emotional memory. The reptile, among the oldest symbols predating architecture itself, becomes a metaphor for Medea’s own transformations — lover, foreigner, mother — continuously shedding identities like skin. The color red functions not only as a reference to blood, but also to interior life, intensity, and accumulated experience.

Further into the exhibition, Whirling Woman, a fragmented fiberglass kinetic sculpture, rotates slowly in perpetual motion. Never entirely fixed in space or meaning, the figure becomes an image of exile itself — suspended between past and future, departure and return. Through movement, Kvesitadze transforms sculpture into an emotional state, where memory remains fluid and unresolved.

Sound plays an essential role throughout the exhibition. The immersive soundtrack Medea, composed by Soundwalk Collective and created by Stephan Crasneanscki together with Simone Merli, accompanies visitors through the exhibition with recordings of radio waves, voices, and environmental sounds gathered around the Black Sea region. The sonic landscape mirrors the exhibition’s emotional atmosphere, deepening its meditation on displacement, resonance, and the persistence of memory.
With Medea: Fragments of Memory, Tamara Kvesitadze turns Palazzo Bragadin into a suspended landscape of shifting forms, echoes, and traces, where mythology and contemporary experience intertwine in a meditation on exile, transformation, and the unstable nature of memory.