The Venetian Lagoon is an ecosystem generated by nonhuman agents and hydrogeological processes, yet also profoundly codesigned by centuries of human intervention.
On January 24-28, 2024, a transdisciplinary group of researchers engaged with Venice and its lagoon, the largest wetland in the Mediterranean, encountering their unruly natures.
Venice’s formation through a convergence of fluvial and saline waters has fostered over millennia a unique tidal rhythm and delicate balance between change and coexistence. Yet, modern interventions display a deliberate misinterpretation of this nature-culture text, failing to heed the lessons of Venice’s human-environment interplays.
In our research trips, we have focused on the socio-ecological tensions erupting in the city and its lagoon, from the management of life-cycles, to the material spectres of mass tourism and the petrochemical infrastructure of Porto Marghera, including the clashes between local economic activities dependent on healthy aquatic cycles and the alienating forces of global capital. The program included guided tours, walking seminars, and an evening salon. A project documentation will soon be made available here and via our newsletter.
Project lead
& program curation
Emiliano Guaraldo︎︎︎
Flurina Gradin︎︎︎
Federico Luisetti︎︎︎
Rony Emmenegger︎︎︎
Participants
Lorenzo Andolfatto ︎︎︎
Joost de Bloois ︎︎︎
Chiara Famegno ︎︎︎
Sonia Levy ︎︎︎
Elena Longhin ︎︎︎
Sigrid Schmeisser ︎︎︎
Matteo Stocco ︎︎︎
Katinka Versendaal ︎︎︎