2025 | Shifting landscapes

What does it mean to cultivate in a lagoon, in an amphibious landscape where water and land are not opposites but elements in perpetual exchange? A shifting, unstable balance, never fixed, never final. This is where the fourth edition of “Convivial Tables, shifting landscape” takes shape: a project that begins with seaweed aquaculture to reflect on how we inhabit and cultivate aquatic environments, how we weave together tradition and innovation within an ecosystem that is constantly changing.

Lagoon aquaculture has a deep history. Traditional practices such as moecanti (crab aquaculture) and caparossolanti (clam aquaculture) have shaped landscapes and communities. Today, their futures encounter emerging technologies and new modes of cultivation, unfolding unprecedented scenarios filled with both opportunities and risks.

Algae are the barometer of an ecosystem. They quietly register and expose what unfolds beneath the surface, making visible the state of the waters. They nourish, they transform, they absorb the impacts of climate change. But to consider them merely as a resource is to misunderstand them. Recognising their potential is not enough; what is needed is a shift in perspective. Aquatic environments are not inert spaces awaiting exploitation. They are not empty, just far from the human eye. Can we conceive of a future—and a present—where cultivation is not solely about extraction but also about restitution? Not control, but reciprocity. Not certainty, but adaptation, failure, ongoing negotiations with the environment. Rather than reaffirming the established narrative of an aquaculture built on mastery and domination (Marianne Lien, 2015), the project invites us to engage with the opportunities and risks that emerge when we embrace the complexity of a system that extends beyond the human.

“Convivial Tables, shifting landscape” unfolds through three activations—field explorations carried out alongside fishermen, marine biologists, artists, designers, and algae researchers. A deliberately open-ended process that resists the need for closure. Following the cracks, the fault lines, bringing together voices that prioritise divergence over cohesion. Encounters designed to observe, study, and experiment with new cultivation methods that engage with the environment, fostering connections rather than divisions. The journey culminates in the final moment “Convivial Tables in campo: sagra dell’alga” (alga festival), a moment of celebration and an open-ended inquiry into what lies ahead.

The project’s underlying thread is the creation of new marine gardens—an organic extension of field explorations, shaped by the collection of knowledge and materials. The lagoon preserves and transforms, holds and releases, and so will this collective experiment, taking shape inside historical vieri, traditional tools of Venetian crab aquaculture. Here, a garden will take root, gradually enriched by a marine compost of algae and shells, layer upon layer, encounter after encounter. More than nourishment, it is a gesture of regeneration. Algae like sargasso flourish in the lagoon thanks to - or because of - fertilisers carried from the mainland. Harvesting them and returning them to the soil means closing a cycle,reabsorbing those nutrients into the land (Vincent Doumeizel, 2022). This compost will serve as the foundation for cultivating lagoon herbs, remnants of lost Venetian gardens. Alongside the vieri, their mirrored counterpoint will be assembled: a suspended drying structure, inspired by the fishermen's nets spread out on the lagoon's saltmarshes to dry, here the seaweed is gathered, tended, and left to the wind, the sun.

Suspended between past and future, fresh and saltwaters, earth and sea, these gardens emerge, invert, dissolve, reassemble. An experiment, a ritual, a possible future for the lagoon.

Convivial Tables unfolds across three interventions, taking place between April and July, culminating in the sagra dell’alga (algae festival) in September. A series of encounters, explorations, and experiments that interrogate both the future and present of the lagoon.

Intervention 1 | sargasso canal
Algae foraging walk and creation of an algarium with marine biologist Bruno La Rocca
Saturday, 12 April, 2025, Ocean Space

Intervention 2 | mille campi
Introduction to clam aquaculture by fisher Devy Chinazzo, following Convivio Acquatico by Tocia!
Saturday, 21 June, 2025, Millecampi Island

Intervention 3 | tramar
Collective crochet workshop with algae yarn, led by Emi Bio Design
Saturday, 12 July, 2025, Ocean Space

Intervention 4 | Convivial Tables in campo: la sagra dell’alga
A day of collective explorations and hands-on activities, concluding with the seaweed festival
Saturday, 27 September, 2025, Campo San Lorenzo, Ocean Space

"Convivial Tables, shifting landscape" does not emerge in isolation. It builds on books, dialogues, exchanges, and tangible needs—foundations (fondamente) meant to be shared, to spark reflections, to open space for new projects. This collection is neither exhaustive nor meant to be. It brings together works that have shaped our perspective, pointed towards possibilities, and helped define a direction forward.

Chiara Famengo is a Venetian curator and researcher currently based in London. Her practice operates at the intersection of art, ecology, and community organising, often extending beyond traditional exhibition spaces, through site-responsive, long-term collaborations. She curates for Arts Council England’s Three Rivers programme and is a guest researcher at NICHE (New Centre for Environmental Humanities, Venice). In 2023, she was the public programme curator for the Venice Design Biennale. In 2024, she co-convened How Like a Reef, a collective developed with artist Sonia Levy. Chiara has contributed to international art commissions and programming, including La Wayaka Programme in the Atacama Desert, Chile; Can Serrat, Spain; the US, Luxembourg, and Timor-Leste Pavilions, at the Venice Biennale; NextDoorARI, Brisbane; Royal College of Art, London; Bethnal Green Nature Reserve, London. She holds an MA in Curating Contemporary Art from the Royal College of Art.

TOCIA! - Cucina e Comunità is an experimental platform in the Venetian lagoon, founded by chef Marco Bravetti, that investigates the relationship between food, community, and the environment. Through conviviality, it challenges contemporary dichotomies such as tourist vs. citizen or human vs. non-human, fostering reflection on social, anthropological, and environmental issues. By integrating scientific, agricultural, artistic, and cultural disciplines, Tocia! develops projects that promote interdisciplinary exchange. Notable initiatives include Convivi Acquatici, which explores the human connection with aquatic spaces, and Supper Clash. Zuppe di lotta, which uses soup as a medium to address political conflicts and contradictions. Tocia! Cucina e Comunità has curated the Cloister of the Floating Cinema (Venice) since its first edition; it was part of the exhibition Italy: A New Collective Landscape, curated by Angela Rui at the ADI Museum (Milan) within Matters of Lives (curated by Noemi Biasetton, Matteo Vianello, Costanza Sartoris); and it contributed to the opening of Petticoat Government, curated by Denicolai & Provoost, Antoinette Jattiot, Nord, Speculoos, at the Belgian Pavilion for the 60th Venice Biennale 2024.

Barena Bianca is an art and ecology collective founded by Fabio Cavallari and Pietro Consolandi in 2018 in the Venice Lagoon. Through their work they seek to bring to light issues that are both ecological and sociological, adopting the Barena as an emblem and choosing a sentimental approach marked by the love of nature as an antidote to climate depression. Their work takes place mainly in public space through collaborative actions, workshops and happenings, as well as occasional installations, video and photography.