Becoming Fresh & Salty Drops (of water)

“Becoming Fresh & Salty Drops (of water)” is a month-long program celebrating the water and life forms of the Venice Lagoon, the largest coastal lagoon in the Mediterranean Sea, home to TBA21–Academy’s Ocean Space. Stories, actions, and online and live events narrate and act upon the future of the Venice Lagoon from ecological and magical perspectives.

Following the moon cycles that control the tides, the program circles back, ending on the summer solstice with the final presentation of the STARTS4Water artists in residence program curated by María Montero Sierra, featuring Sonia Levy with Heather Ann Swanson, Meredith Root-Bernstein, and Alexandra Arènes; and Diego Delas and Leonor Serrano Rivas, and beginning with a wetland kinship project in conversation with curator Camila Marambio whose public program for Turba Tol Hol-Hol Tol the Chilean Pavilion at the 2022 Venice Biennale, contemplates a convening on World Peatlands Day. It is precededfollowed by an educational program for World Oceans Day; a walks program, Venice as a model for the future? curated by Barbara Casavecchia and Pietro Consolandi; and

TBA21–Academy's program on the intersections of food and ecology led by Montero Sierra, Barbara Nardacchione, with Markus Reymann and Alice Ongaro Sartori in collaboration with chef Marco Bravetti and TOCIA!.

This month-long program is aligned with the principles of regeneration and more-than-human rights promoted by the project Zoöp, which TBA21–Academy is a partner in.

With: pantea; Frédérique Aït-Touati; Camilla Bertolini; Isabelle Carbonell; Diego Delas, Leonor Serrano Rivas, and Gražina Subelytė; Ifor Duncan and Heather Contant; Vera Dvale; Lodovica Guarnieri; Hans Joosten; Dianna Kopansky; Sonia Levy with Heather Ann Swanson, Meredith Root-Bernstein, and Alexandra Arènes; Radio Amnion; Reverend Houston Cypress, Bárbara Saavedra.

• WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2 | Ocean Space

The Venice Agreement: Protecting Global Peatlands Locally

A global peatland covening in Venice will bring together international practitioners of conservation and restoration of our planet's peatlands.

Curated by Camila Marambio. Co-organized by Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Chile, Ensayos, the Greifswald Mire Center, and TBA21–Academy.

• WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8 | Marghera

When I breathe, I swallow the Lagoon

The performance by Lodovica Guarnieri chronicles the bonds between humans and non-humans in a toxic environment. It does so by taking us where the environment of the Lagoon rebels against binary geographical and temporal coordinates: land becomes liquid; emerged islands are part of the seabed; past and future blur into a continuous present.

Commissioned by TBA21–Academy with the support of S+T+ARTS.

• FRIDAY, JUNE 10 | Piazzale Roma

The Return of Venetian Flat Oysters: MAREA project. Part of the itinerant conversation cycle "Cohabiting Within Wetness. Venice as a model for the future?"

Camilla Bertolini, marine biologist and postdoctoral researcher at Ca' Foscari University, will introduce MAREA (MAtchmaking Restoration Ecology & Aquaculture), the project which aims to show how ecosystem restoration can coexist with sustainable aquaculture by increasing income while reducing impact.

• TUESDAY, JUNE 21 | Ocean Space

S+T+ARTS Showcase - Becoming Fresh Salty Drops

Talks, screening, and expeditions to celebrate the water and life forms of the Venice Lagoon and commemorate the conclusion of the STARTS residencies organized by TBA21–Academy that explored ecological and magical propositions for sustainable water management in the Venetian lagoon.

With Frédérique Aït-Touati, Sonia Levy with Heather Ann Swanson, Meredith Root-Bernstein, and Alexandra Arènes, Diego Delas, Leonor Serrano Rivas, and Gražina Subelytė. Special guest: Radio Amnion: Sonic Transmissions Of Care In Oceanic Space.

*Participation is free, please make a reservation at this link*