Art, Place and Belonging: Who Gets to Tell a Story?
Updated: Oct 5
Editorial Vol 25
Art, place and belonging
A place is never just a setting. It holds memory, language, work, conflict and ways of knowing the world. When an artwork draws on a particular place or community, a question follows: who is telling the story, and from what relationship to it?
In May 2026, the Venice Biennale opened In Minor Keys, a project conceived by curator Koyo Kouoh and carried forward by her team. Its curatorial introduction centres listening and the connections between artistic practices, lived worlds and forms of knowledge often overlooked by dominant narratives. The exhibition offers a timely invitation to think about how art can bring different histories into relation while allowing each practice to remain specific.
Art, place and belonging: starting from relationship
Artists often approach place through lived experience: a landscape that has changed, a family history, a language, a material or a memory carried across generations. Others work from research, encounter or distance. These positions are not interchangeable, and they need not produce the same kind of work.
The important question is not whether an artist is “inside” or “outside” a place. It is how the relationship is formed, what the artist has chosen to attend to, and what the work makes possible for others to see.
For artists: make your point of view visible
An artist’s statement can help audiences understand where a project begins. What experience, encounter or question led to the work? What sources, materials or relationships shaped it? What remains unresolved?
Clarity about one’s position does not mean explaining everything or claiming to represent an entire community. It can do the opposite: show the limits of a perspective, acknowledge complexity and make room for voices beyond one’s own.
A specific account is often more compelling than a broad claim. One remembered street, a particular family archive or a changing shoreline can open onto larger questions without being made to stand for everyone.
For collectors: look beyond the label
When a work engages with identity, migration, memory or land, its context can enrich the encounter. Collectors may ask how the artist describes the work’s relationship to its place, whose knowledge informed it and how the work sits within the artist’s wider practice.
A label such as “diasporic,” “Indigenous” or “environmental” may offer an initial point of reference, but it cannot substitute for looking closely at the work. Context helps us ask better questions; it should not decide in advance what an artwork means.
For curators and galleries: create room for more than one voice
Exhibition texts and labels shape the way audiences meet an artwork. Curators and galleries can make that framing responsible by using accurate language, identifying the sources of information and distinguishing an artist’s own words from institutional interpretation.
When a project involves communities or histories beyond the artist’s direct experience, careful presentation matters. It means avoiding the suggestion that one person speaks for many, and allowing complexity, disagreement and silence to remain visible.
The Biennale’s published account of In Minor Keys describes connections among artists working in different places and the resonances between their practices. This kind of relational approach can help audiences encounter difference without flattening it into a single theme.
Belonging is not a single story
Art can bring distant histories into conversation and make familiar places appear newly complex. It can also remind us that no artwork or exhibition can tell a whole story on behalf of a place or its people.
At NNC Gallery, we look closely at the choices artists make and the contexts in which their practices develop. We believe meaningful presentation begins with attention: to the work, to the artist’s point of view and to the voices that shape its wider conversation.
Valentine H.Hyman
Discover the artists featured by NNC Gallery and explore the current Challenge.
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