Lagoon Micro-ecologies.
Venice as a Model for the Future?
May 7 – October 9, 2021

Past
TBA21–Academy
Programming

Establishing the new cycle of The Current III with a first chapter of public walks, “Lagoon Micro-ecologies” is a continuation of itinerant conversations held in the series “Venice as a Model for the Future?” as part of the public program and the Ocean Fellowship program at Ocean Space in 2020. 

Co-curated by Barbara Casavecchia and Pietro Consolandi, these walks move beyond the urban boundaries of the city of Venice, toward the islands of its lagoon. The participants are directing their steps and gazes to landscapes and seascapes created by the interaction between multiple species, not only human: from coastal sand dunes to humus layers in gardens, from sandbanks inhabited by salt-loving wild plants and birds to the seabed populated by water-filtering mollusks and tiny fish.
 
Scholar and anthropologist Anna Tsing invites us to rethink landscapes as “assemblages” of coexisting life forms that require “habits of noticing.” She reminds us that these landscapes are “open-ended gatherings. They allow us to ask about communal effects without assuming them. They show us potential histories in the making.”

Each walk is guided by a different Venetian voice, in order to expand our knowledge of local ecologies, give us the opportunity to connect or reconnect to them and widen our ways of being. The walking exercise is to be continued beyond the lagoon, along the coasts, and into imaginary oceans. We are written in water, perpetually changing and preserving. We run auditory fingertips along the coastal lines, listening in to ecotones alive with encoded information passing through as calls and responses. Our thoughts are running in currents. We shall meet again at the table of tides every other Friday. 

The project “Venice as a model for the future?” was initiated in 2020 and is curated by Barbara Casavecchia and Pietro Consolandi. “Cohabiting Within Wetness” is part of the three-year research cycle The Current III —“Mediterraneans: ‘Thus waves come in pairs’ (after Etel Adnan)," led by Barbara Casavecchia.


Please note the program is conducted in Italian. 
PROGRAM
Friday, May 7
Amid the sand dunes: how to see a forgotten ecosystem with Lara Endrizzi,
Oasi San Nicolò, Lido
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Friday, May 21
A live pantry for a community in fermentation with Marco Bravetti,
Castello
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Friday, May 28
Memories of sand: the salt marshes of the central lagoon with - Amina Chouairi,
San Lazzaro degli Armeni
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Friday, June 11
The soils of Venice: with light footed on the ground with Michele Savorgnano and Sara Paolini,
Giudecca
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Friday, June 25
How to live with the dunes? with Ruggero Di Paola, 
Oasi Alberoni on the Lido
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Friday, July 2
Coexistence and migration in a fossil dune with Camillo Rigato and Piero Santostefano,
Cavallino Treporti
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Friday, July 9
On the salt marshes with Lorenzo Bonometto,
Campalto Salt Marshes
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Saturday, September 25
The story of a mussel from the lagoon to the sea, with Family Busetto 
Pellestrina 
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Saturday, October 2
The landscape as a museum: the Salt​ Marsh Path, Ecomuseum Lazzaretti Veneziani
Lazzaretto Nuovo 
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Saturday, October 9
Rebuilding with water and mud: a breathing lagoon with ​Alberto Barausse / LIFE Vimine
Torcello
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CURATORS
Barbara Casavecchia is a writer, independent curator, and educator based in Milan, where she teaches at the Department of Visual Cultures and Curatorial Practices of the Brera Academy since 2011. She currently holds a course in Critical Writing at NABA, Milan. Contributing editor of Frieze magazine, her articles and essays have been published in art-agenda, ArtReview, D/La Repubblica, Flash Art, Mousse, Nero, South, and Spike, amongst others, as well as in artist books and catalogues. In 2018, she curated the solo exhibition “Susan Hiller, Social Facts” at OGR, Turin. In 2020, she acted as Mentor of the Ocean Fellowship Program offered by TBA21–Academy at Ocean Space in Venice. In 2021–2023, Barbara is going to lead The Current III.  

Pietro Consolandi is a former fellow of TBA21–Academy’s inaugural Ocean Fellowship. He is an artist, writer and curator with education in political theory (MSc at the University of Edinburgh) and visual arts (MA at the IUAV University of Venice). His practice strives to blur the boundaries between these two disciplines. His recent works approach issues connected with the Anthropocene and the great climate acceleration, analyzing how late-stage capitalism critically strikes the world through chaotic action and irresponsible development. Primarily as part of the collective Barena Bianca, his practice uses art as a resistance tactic in Venice, highlighting how global networks of research and activism are essential to understand and tackle issues that are simultaneously ecological and sociological in nature.