Closing Ritual - Confluence of European Water Bodies 2024

The Confluence of European Water Bodies comes to an end on October, Sunday 6 with a performative ritual coordinated by Vistula representatives River Sisters and Akerselva representative Jessica Ullevålseter in collaboration with Whanganui & Klarälven representative, Maori woman Erena Rangimarie Omaki Ransfield Rhöse.

The two performances will mark the sisterhood of the Lagoon of Venice with more than 20 other water bodies from the European continent, everyone in Venice – local or visitor – is welcome to join either as audience or as participant, to their discretion, as the ritual will have a highly participatory nature.

The Sisterhood of the River and Waters Unity

At the closing ceremony of the 2nd European Water Bodies Confluence, River Sisters (Cecylia Malik, Agata Bargiel, Anna Chmiel and Mateusz Barski) will invite everyone to join us in a happening: the Unity of Waters, the Sisterhood of Rivers and the Brotherhood of Lakes and Lagoons and Seas.

We ask a question: from which water do you come? We will walk from Ocean Space towards the edge of the water, where we will speak a phrase that symbolizes unity. All rivers are sisters, all water is a community.

We will carry the names, words and symbols of our waters. Together we will sing a song for the Venice Lagoon and the rivers that feed it, a song that, like a water, will bring us all together.

The Marriage of the opposites, an alchemical wedding

"A precious ring is given to Sea to appease the gods.

Ring is made out of copper, to ionise and make healthy the water."

This action is a reenactment and a reappropriation of a ritual that creates peace and dialogue with nature, once established in Venice, taken by the church, thus the nobility and then to be performed in a vague theatrical representation of the state. The intention is to bring back the ritual in its truth, freeing it from form,- but committed to peace work between the opposites within its intentions. It is to give back this theater and entertainment to its true essence, which is a ritual- that contains a true belief in more than human dialogues.

The ritual will be an embodiment of peace between the lagoon and the adriatic sea, and reinstallment of dialogue between human and sea.

The program of the Venetian edition of the Confluence of European Water Bodies emerges from the many participating water bodies. It was co-developed with NICHE (Ca' Foscari University) and Italian Buddhist Union (UBI), in fundamental dialogue with local activist associations Comitato per le Grave di Ciano (River Piave) and Poveglia per Tutti (Venice Lagoon).

Confluence of European Water Bodies is founded by the Embassy of the North Sea, ILP Mar Menor and TBA21–Academy and supported by the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice: NICHE (THE NEW INSTITUTE Center for Environmental Humanities), GARN (Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature), the Italian Buddhist Union, Creative Industries Fund NL, Venice Climate Change Pavilion and ZIN Doc.