Ocean Space becomes a Zoöp

TBA21’s Venice art center adopts a governance model in which an independent representative speaks for nature in its decisions.

Ocean Space, TBA21–Academy's flagship center in Venice, is now officially a Zoöp, the first in Italy. The Zoöp Contract was signed on Saturday, October 10, during Riverberi Festival. Words, Sounds, and Performances with the Lagoon (October 9–11), immediately after the second Citizens' Assembly for the Rights of the Lagoon. With the signing, Ocean Space joins a growing international network of organizations that formally represent the interests of more-than-human life within their own governance, and appoints an independent Speaker for the Living, the Venetian curator and researcher Chiara Famengo, to bring the interests of the Lagoon into the institution's decision-making.

What is Zoöp

Born in the Netherlands in 2018, Zoöp is an organizational model built on a simple premise: organizations, for-profit and nonprofit alike, should actively work toward ecological regeneration and represent the interests of plants, animals, soil, and ecosystems in their decisions. The name combines zoë, Greek for life in its broadest sense, with "cooperation." A Zoöp appoints an independent Speaker for the Living, assigned by the Zoönomic Foundation, and commits to the Zoönomic Annual Cycle, a yearly process of assessing its ecological relationships and setting concrete regenerative goals. The Speaker is neither employed nor appointed by the organization, a safeguard that keeps the role independent. The Zoönomic Institute develops the annual cycle and certifies that each Zoöp meets its commitments.

The signing was marked by a public conversation, "Ocean Space Becomes a Zoöp, But What Is It?", with Klaas Kuitenbrouwer, director of the Zoönomic Institute, Chiara Famengo, and Markus Reymann, Co-Director of TBA21.

As Speaker for the Living, Chiara Famengo will act as an independent advisor and board observer for Ocean Space, helping the institution listen to the interests of the Venice Lagoon and guiding it through the Zoönomic Annual Cycle in the years ahead. Her practice investigates the cultural, ecological, and political dimensions of hybrid and liminal landscapes, particularly marshes, through long-term, site-responsive programs that connect contemporary art with local ecological knowledge, scientific research, and situated practices.

“This new model is about bringing very different knowledge of the lagoon together at the same table, from fishermen and scientists to people fighting for housing in Venice, managing waste, or experiencing climate change. We cannot separate the ecological from the social and the political. It is not about creating projects about the lagoon, but projects, ideas, and programs shaped by it: by its inhabitants, its life forms, its conflicts, and the knowledge that emerges from all of this. This means building the program from below and understanding the importance of relating to a wider ecosystem,” said Chiara Famengo, Speaker for the Living at Ocean .

Years of aligned practice, now made structural

Ocean Space has worked with the principles of Zoöp since 2021, when it hosted the public research project Venice as Zoöp and the presentation of the Compendium of Rights of Nature, together with the Embassy of the North Sea, The New Institute, and We Are Here Venice. The same values run through Convivial Tables, TBA21–Academy's ongoing research program on lagoon aquaculture, food ecologies, and regenerative cultivation, whose fifth edition, INVISIBILE: Spores, Words, Currents, curated by Bogiaisso (Alice Jasmine Crippa and Niccolò Moronato), concluded in September. The contract turns this practice into a certified, permanent part of how the institution operates, and extends TBA21–Academy's research lines on Convivial Conservation, Rights of Nature, Ecologies of Technologies, and Governing Otherwise.

One million signatures for the rights of ecosystems

TBA21 is also supporting Rights for Nature, a European Citizens' Initiative calling for the recognition of ecosystems as subjects of rights under the EU law. The campaign seeks to give citizens and communities the legal means to defend nature and aims to collect one million signatures by October 13, 2027. If this campaign meets the required threshold, the proposal will be formally examined by the European Commission. This commitment also runs through projects supported by TBA21 such as Nature Speaks and the Confluence of European Water Bodies. Together with the research and case studies commissioned and featured on Ocean-Archive.org on this matter, these initiatives bring artistic research into wider public and institutional debates on the rights of nature. 

TBA21 and the Rights of Nature

The Zoöp signing builds on TBA21's long engagement with the Rights of Nature, one of TBA21–Academy's core research lines. In 2023, TBA21–Academy co-founded the Confluence of European Water Bodies with the Embassy of the North Sea and ILP Mar Menor: a pan-European, artist-led advocacy network launched on the shores of the Mar Menor, the Spanish lagoon that became the first ecosystem in Europe to gain legal personhood in 2022. The Confluence's 2024 gathering in Venice brought local activists together with a delegation from the Mar Menor, giving momentum to the Declaration of the Rights of the Venice Lagoon, drafted collaboratively in 2025 and presented at Ocean Space. TBA21 continues to support the network through the Stream, its support structure. In 2026, Ocean Space dedicated its research program to Nature Speaks. Listening for Rights of Nature in Venice and Europe, a Policy Lab curated by Pietro Consolandi and Amalia Rossi and co-produced with the NICHE Centre for Environmental Humanities at Ca' Foscari University of Venice, in collaboration with IDRA and the Confluence of European Water Bodies. Over seven months, the Policy Lab's working group translated the Declaration into a draft law recognizing the Venice Lagoon's legal personhood and enforceable rights, presented at the second Citizens' Assembly for the Rights of the Lagoon on October 10. With the close of the Policy Lab, the group has become the independent Initiative for the Rights of the Venice Lagoon, which will open the draft to public feedback before bringing it to institutions.