Translating the Lagoon

Join us for Translating the Lagoon, a series of three free workshops with artist Klara Kofen, developed as part of her forthcoming installation The Eyes of Princes which will take place in February 2027 at Ocean Space. This is a series of exercises in collective decision-making, writing, and performing. These workshops will directly shape the installation and the live performance of The Eyes of Princes.

Participants can join individual workshops or across the series: two evening workshops on September 21 and 23 (3 hours) and one full-day workshop (6 hours, lunch provided) on September 29, conducted by Klara Kofen with Italian translations by Eduard Popescu.

We welcome participants aged 16+ and any backgrounds — no prior experience or knowledge of performance, writing, or digital technology is required.

The artist works in English; a working knowledge of English is useful, but everything will be translated into Italian. Participants may write and speak in either English or Italian. 

To participate you can register via this link.

Deadline: Sunday, September 13, 11:59pm CET.

Write up to 150 words about who you are, what you do, and why you would like to join. Registration requests can be in English or Italian. 

Places are limited, so early applications are encouraged. 

For those keen to attend the third workshop please let us know your dietary requirements. Those living more than 15 km from Venice's historic center can request a travel reimbursement (up to €20 per session), which will be provided based on availability.

The European Union is building a Digital Twin of the Ocean: a live model that policymakers will use to make decisions about energy, tourism, and the future of the lagoon. But every model has to choose what to measure — and what to leave out.

In this workshop, participants will build their own speculative counter-twin of the Venice lagoon, to be exhibited as part of the future Klara Kofen's installation The Eyes of Princes at Ocean Space in February 2027. After a short introduction to digital twin technology, participants will decide together what their twin measures. The health of the salt marshes? The echo of church bells? The supply of cheap hand-held fans? The ghosts of the lagoon? Where does our model end — at the cubic metre of water on our doorstep, or at every coastline of the Mediterranean? And what futures does it point to?

Open to anyone with an interest in the lagoon and its many lives. No knowledge of digital twins required — just curiosity. The decisions made in this workshop will directly shape the artwork. The format of this workshop is primarily conversational. 

Everything is alive, everything is moving — so how do we narrate across scales? In this collective writing workshop, participants will create tales that leap from the microcosm of plankton to the vastness of the ocean, from the flight of birds to the emotional lives of dead princes.

Drawing on a decade of writing operas collaboratively, the artist will share exercises and strategies for creating song texts, monologues, recitatives, and poems for live performance. Using surrealist games, AI logic, and different theories of cause and effect, participants will weave the many pasts and futures of the lagoon into texts that will feed directly into the live performance activating The Eyes of Princes.

No experience in writing, singing, or performing required. Participants are welcome to write in English, Italian, or whichever language they feel most at home in.

How does a light change the meaning of a line? How does sound transform a space? How do we build performances together?

The Immovable Dramaturgical Object is a workshop format developed by Klara Kofen that invites participants to create micro-performances using the modalities of the stage: text, sound, light, score, space, and image. Working in small groups with the texts written in the previous workshop, participants will devise short performances. What happens to a story when it can only travel through light? Through sound? What carries the meaning when everything else is stripped away?

No performance experience necessary — just curiosity and a willingness to experiment. The performances and discussions from this workshop will inform the live performance of The Eyes of Princes.

Translating the Lagoon is a workshop series developed as part of Counterfactual Waters, an artistic residency by Klara Kofen within the framework of the TIDAL ArtS residency program funded by the European Union, in collaboration with TBA21–Academy's Ocean Space in Venice.