Review of ‘Tide of Returns’ at Ocean Space

by Alison Hugill // June 25, 2026

Urgent questions around repatriation and reparations form the political backdrop of ‘Tide of Returns,’ an exhibition by Repatriates Collective and Verena Melgarejo Weinandt at Ocean Space in Venice. During the preview week of the Venice Biennale of Art in May, the show offered a cool respite from the intensity of endless pavilion-style exhibitions, and demanded a more rigorous intellectual and political engagement.

German colonialism—particularly the early 20th century genocide of the Ovaherero and Nama peoples of Namibia—is at the forefront of this show, which more broadly probes questions of contemporary repatriation of Indigenous artworks and artefacts worldwide, as well as the often still-unresolved question of financial restitution. During the accompanying series of art talks in May, the historical example of Namibia was set among concerns over the present-day genocide in Gaza, as well as historical and ongoing genocides of Indigenous peoples in Australia, North and South America and Africa.

Repatriates Collective: ‘From My Mother’s Country,’ installation view at Ocean Space // Photo by Anna Russ

An impressive topography of sand dunes in the exhibition’s first room plays host to hundreds of small, handmade dolls. Considered sacred vessels of fertility, the Dadikwakwa-kwa (shell dolls) were returned to the Warnindilyakwa in Australia and to Windhoek, Namibia from European cultural institutions as part of recent repatriations. The installation, titled ‘From My Mother’s Country,’ surrounds a film by the same name, which follows the labor of the doll makers as they prepare and bless them before their journey to Venice.

‘Tide of Returns,’ 2025, film still, Groote Eylandt // Photo by Britten Syd Andrews

Redressing becomes twofold: by definition, the term “redress” refers to the act of setting right an unfair situation, making amends for a wrong or providing compensation for a loss. Here, the dolls are lovingly, and literally, re-dressed, adorned in Namibian fabrics for their trip overseas. At Ocean Space, they form a community atop the dunes, and visitors can easily get lost in the staged details of their sociality and connection.

Verena Melgarejo Weinandt: ‘Weaving Connections,’ 2026, installation view of ‘Tide of Returns,’ Ocean
Space, Venice // Commissioned and produced by TBA21–Academy, photo by Jacopo Salvi

Complementing the notion of return, the aesthetic tides change in the next room with German-Bolivian artist Verena Melgarejo Weinandt’s treatment of water as an interconnected and invaluable resource, unfettered by human-made nature-culture dichotomies and artificial state borders. A selection of textiles in varying shades of blue are interwoven with black braids in ‘Weaving Connections,’ recalling both falling water and hair. A long, coiling black braid travels across the floor, as a three-channel video set among the installations brings to life the act of washing and braiding the textiles, along a riverbed. Melgarejo Weinandt’s practice has long analyzed the ways in which Germany has represented Indigenous people in its popular culture, interrogating forms of violence that appear through institutional and societal separations and categorizations. The water’s path, here, provides an apt metaphor for the reality of human and more-than-human interconnection.

Verena Melgarejo Weinandt: ‘Agua y Trenzas. A Manifestation of Connection,’ 2025, film still // Courtesy of the artist

During the Biennale opening, performers activated the long, black braid, connecting the two waters that flow around Ocean Space and providing a meditation on the continuity of bodies of water. In both installations that make up ‘Tide of Returns,’ we see and feel how ancestral memory leaves its indelible mark on landscapes and bodies, despite waves of exile, forced migration, diaspora and return.