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Diego Delas and Leonor Serrano Rivas
Breathings of the moon. Expedition, 2022

June 21, 2022

Breathings of the moon. Expedition, 2022. Leonor Serrano Rivas and Diego Delas.
Commissioned by TBA21–Academy with the support of S+T+ARTS.
Part of Becoming Fresh Salty Drops, the STARTS showcase event at TBA21–Academy's Ocean Space, Venice. Photo by Enrico Fiorese.

Breathings of the moon. Expedition, 2022. Leonor Serrano Rivas and Diego Delas.
Commissioned by TBA21–Academy with the support of S+T+ARTS.

Diego Delas and Leonor Serrano Rivas in conversation with Gražina Subelytė, Ocean Space, 2022. Part of Becoming Fresh Salty Drops, the STARTS showcase event at TBA21–Academy's Ocean Space, Venice. Photo by Enrico Fiorese.

TBA21–Academy

Programming

Commissions

Performance, sampierota boat, rower, Venice canal, 15 min.

Breathings of the moon functions as both a performance and an expedition into the underwater worlds of the Venice Lagoon and its canals. Rooted in the idea of a magic trick, it follows the logic of pre-scientific amusement artifacts that looked at the world and its different scales with fresh eyes.

The performance is structured as a series of quasi-theatrical progressive steps to be taken: to hold the hand of the rower (eternal storyteller), to descend into a vessel, to enter the belly of a quasi-fish, and to get used to the dark. Looking into the water through an instrument, resonating with the rower, the canal, the rhythms of the lagoon, and embodying a multiplicity of tidal patterns, to come back anew, return changed, amused and amazed, disembarking elsewhere—close, but elsewhere, perhaps on a much more complex realm.

Boat and rower: Venice on Board
Performer: Vincenzo Tosetto
Commissioned by TBA21–Academy with the support of S+T+ARTS

Both artists, architects, and researchers, Leonor Serrano Rivas and Diego Delas obtained their Masters in Arts in London (at Goldsmiths and the Royal College of Art) and studied their Ph.D. in art practice in the UK (Slade, UCL, and The Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford). Serrano Rivas’s sculptures, films, and installations are often used as a way to present layered sensorial experiences where the viewer must forget the narrative impulse, unlearn the desire for resolution, and delve into the realm of the work. Delas’s paintings, textiles, and installations look at certain vernacular architectural motifs related to storytelling that configure the idea of a house as a familiar body, sustained by memories and populated with amulets.

They are both currently working on two major solo shows opening next year: MNCARS Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid (Serrano Rivas) and CAB Burgos (Delas). International exhibitions include, among others, the Liverpool Biennial; E-Werk, Freiburg; Freelands Foundation, London; Matadero, Madrid; MUSAC, León; HAUS, Viena; C3A, Córdoba; St. Petersburg - The Russian Museum in Malaga, Málaga; ICA, London; Arcade, London; CAAC, Seville; Chisenhale Studios, London; BARCU, Bogotá; José La Fuente Gallery, Santander; Marta Cervera Gallery, Madrid; Lychee One Gallery, London; Tiro al Blanco, Guadalajara; CentroCentro, Madrid; La Casa Encendida, Madrid; Galleri Rotor, Gothenburg; and the 9th Venice Architecture Biennale, Venice.

“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.

S+T+ARTS is an initiative of the European Commission to foster alliances between science, technology and the arts, in order to cultivate technological innovation centered on human needs and values.
The pilot project STARTS4Water builds on the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030 and especially on SDG 5 ‘Clean Water and Sanitation’ and SDG14 ‘Life Below Water’.

Magical Fresh & Salty Conversations is TBA21–Academy’s podcast series exploring ecological and magical perspectives on bodies of water.

Listen to Diego Delas and Leonor Serrano Rivas, engage in a conversation with philosopher and writer Federico Campagna and professor of history of art, science, and folk practices John Tresch in the episode: The Problem of Imagination: The Triangle of Magic-Imagination-Science and walk with them through the performance-expedition Breathings of the Moon in the episode Rhytmic Bodies.

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Becoming Fresh & Salty Drops (of water)

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Diego Delas and Leonor Serrano RivasBreathings of the moon. Expedition, 2022

June 21, 2022

Diego Delas and Leonor Serrano Rivas
Breathings of the moon. Expedition, 2022