MINORIA IV: Return

MINORIA IV: Return is the fourth chapter of MINORIA, an ongoing curatorial project developed by ORAC Gallery during the 2026 Venice Biennale season.

Developed in dialogue with the conceptual framework of Biennale Arte 2026, In Minor Keys, curated by Koyo Kouoh, MINORIA approaches artistic form not as a fixed or final state, but as a temporary condition of emergence.

Across its previous chapters, the project explored trace, movement, and discovery as phases within an evolving curatorial field. Each chapter has functioned as a moment of intensification within a larger process of becoming.

MINORIA IV: Return introduces a reverse movement within this trajectory.

In this performative chapter, shells previously gathered from the Venetian coastline and temporarily brought into the gallery space are returned to the sea. The gesture marks a release of form back into movement, uncertainty, and continuity with its original environment.

Rather than preserving the trace as an object of permanence, the project acknowledges impermanence as an essential condition of artistic existence. Here, return becomes an act of acceptance: a recognition that not all forms are meant to be held, stabilised, or possessed.

What emerges may also dissolve.
What appears may also return.

Through this gesture, MINORIA extends its curatorial methodology beyond emergence toward release, dissolution, and transformation.