Dayanita Singh's ARCHIVIO at Venice's Archivio di Stato

Dayanita Singh showed ARCHIVIO inside a normally closed storage room at Venice's Archivio di Stato during the 2026 Biennale period. Fifteen collapsible four-sided wooden structures held her black-and-white photographs of Italian archives, shot over more than a decade. Singh kept costs down by working within what she calls a 'friendship economy': student docents exchanged labour for mentorship, and the portable structures were designed to minimise shipping. Aperture published a conversation between Singh and curator Sarah Meister about the project.