We all Needed the Same Sun

29.8 – 30.9 26

curated by School for Curatorial Studies Venice

Participating Artists: Jonathas de Andrade, Clelia Cadamuro, Simone Carraro, Paola Cenati, Daria Dmytrenko, Ketty Gobbo, Glenda León, Anna Marzuttini, Matilde Sambo, Sebastiano Zafonte.

13 international curators, 10 artists, 1 mission: exploring humanity’s evolving relationship with the natural world. Presented by the School for Curatorial Studies Venice, We all Needed the Same Sun marks the culminating curatorial project of the 11th edition of its International Curatorial Programme.

After 3 months of intense research and discussions, the 13 curators, with diverse cultural and professional backgrounds, will present a group of Italian and international artists who question our position within nature. This exhibition opens on 29 August 2026 at A plus A Gallery in the heart of Venice and runs until 30 September 2026.

For approximately 13.8 billion years, nature has, prevailed, and continues to dominate, constantly adapting, and evolving. The gradual alienation of humanity from the very cradle of its creation has led to a one-sided relationship with nature. We extract, consume, and exploit its resources, only to inevitably return to it.  But nature asserts its power and evolves on its own terms, reminding us that it ultimately surpasses human control.

Hosted in the two floors of the gallery and divided in five spaces, the exhibition unfolds as a non linear journey. Positioned in front of the large window in the first room, Matilde Sambo’s bronze sculptures — resembling real animals — and her drawings create a space where identity and memory intertwine. From here, the thematic focus shifts to the human presumption to observe, classify and explain the world, through Simone Carraro’s archive setup. His work delves into changing landscapes and in dialogue with Daria’s Dmytrenko’s sculpture it blurs the boundaries between animals, humans and beasts. But what happens when observations give way to encounter? Jonathas de Andrade’s video explores this question through an intimate exchange between a fisherman from a village on Brazil’s northeastern coast and a fish—a human-animal gaze that goes beyond fiction. Dispersed ceramic mushrooms by Anna Marzuttini, scattered through the gallery rooms, evoke nature’s quiet persistence across time.

Moving further into space, Paola Cenati’s wooden sculpture extends this dialogue, reflecting on the traces we leave on the natural world. As another example of these traces and placed in the second floor, Sebastiano Zafonte artificial nest made of cigarette butts portrays an ecosystem that has normalized environmental harm. Against this backdrop, a video installation by Glenda León’s invites visitors to rethink their origins, by actually providing space to breathe and slow down. We then encounter the work by Ketty Gobbo interconnecting two rooms: a fabric piece resembling a conglomeration of fossils evokes concerns regarding what emerges and what dissolves as a consequence of environmental change. Walking into the final room, a photograph of a tree dominating the surrounding space by Clelia Cadamuro reinforces the idea that, regardless of human interventions, nature will always remain more resilient, adaptive, and ultimately dominant.

We All Needed The Same Sun coincides with and contributes a distinctive voice to the artistic polyphony of the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, In Minor Keys, curated by Koyo Kouoh and her team. Their curatorial vision searches for resonances, affinities, and the sacred rediscovering our place within the living world. Against this backdrop, We All Needed The Same Sun invites visitors to experience ‘interbeing’, a term that discloses human coexistence with countless other species, sharing the same world, under the same sun.