Mita Chowdhury selected for Deakin University Venice Biennale Mentorship
Wyndham City Council, in partnership with Deakin University, is delighted to announce interdisciplinary artist Mita Chowdhury as the recipient of the 2026 Venice Biennale Mentorship Opportunity.
Supported by Wyndham City Arts & Culture, the mentorship provides a unique opportunity for a Wyndham-based artist to develop their practice on the international stage through participation in Venetian Kind, hosted by the European Cultural Centre and curated by Cameron Bishop and David Cross.
From Wyndham to Venice
Mita Chowdhury is an interdisciplinary artist. Born in Bangladesh’s river delta, she draws on personal and family histories to explore memory, migration, place and belonging.
Working across digital image-making, expanded painting, installation, textiles and socially engaged art, Mita investigates how photographs, materials, oral histories and everyday cultural practices carry knowledge across generations.
Her research centres on first-generation Bangladeshi Australian women, examining how identity is negotiated through memory, material culture and creative practice. Through archival fragments, post memory and processes of reconstruction, she explores the unstable relationship between remembered histories and lived experience.
Mita has exhibited widely in Australia and Bangladesh, including at the 19th Asian Art Biennale, Dhaka (2022). She has presented seven solo exhibitions since 2021, most recently Inheritance at RMIT First Site Gallery in 2026. Her awards include the RMIT Cultural Vision Scholarship (2022) and the ADFAS Yarra Young and Emerging Artist Award (2023).
Mita will travel to Venice to participate in the Venetian Kind program from 19–24 October 2026.
Across six days, she will engage with real-time curatorial provocations designed to challenge and expand her creative practice. Working alongside artists, designers, filmmakers, writers and researchers from across Deakin University, Mita will participate in workshops, creative exchange, feedback and critique sessions.
Supported by curators Cameron Bishop and David Cross, she will work hands-on with mentors to develop site-responsive artworks, integrating diverse techniques and perspectives with her existing practice and approaches.
Venice itself will become an active part of the creative process, providing a rich environment for Mita to explore the relationship between place, history, culture and materiality.
The collaborative works developed through the Venetian Kind project will be presented at Palazzo Mora, Venice, in November 2026.
Following the Venice exhibition, Deakin University will return the works to Melbourne, where curators will work towards further exhibition opportunities, including potential presentations.
The opportunity extends beyond the Venice experience itself, creating a pathway for continued professional development, collaboration and presentation of Mita’s practice.
The Venice Biennale Mentorship is designed to foster the creative skills of a local practitioner while building the creative capacity of the broader Wyndham community.
By connecting a Wyndham-based artist with international practitioners, curators and researchers, the program supports cross-cultural exchange and creates opportunities for local artists to engage with new ideas, approaches and professional networks.
Wyndham City Council is proud to support Mita as she takes this next step in her artistic journey.
Congratulations, Mita. We look forward to following your journey from Wyndham to Venice and seeing how this experience shapes the next chapter of your practice.
About the Venice Biennale Mentorship
The Deakin University Venice Biennale Mentorship Opportunity is supported by Wyndham City Arts & Culture and provides a Wyndham-based artist with an immersive international professional development experience.
The 2026 program forms part of Venetian Kind, hosted by the European Cultural Centre and curated by Cameron Bishop and David Cross.
Program dates: 19–24 October 2026
Location: Venice, Italy
Exhibition: Palazzo Mora, November 2026
Recipient: Mita Chowdhury
The 2024 recipient was Connor MacPherson, the Artist Known as Foot.
Opening celebration for Inheritance by Mita Chowdhury, First Site Gallery, April 2026. Photo by Bernie Phelan.