NICE2025: POROUS — Ports as Interspecies Dwelling

Symposium & Live Program at Villa Arson - Nice, France

June 7 – June 8, 2025

External

Siobhán McDonald: Floating Worlds. Submerged ship, Dublin Port, 2025.

External

Academy Events

Recommended

Organized on the occasion of the World Ocean Day, the United Nations Conference on the Oceans & Biennale des Arts et de l’Océan 2025 
A project within the European Commission’s S+T+ARTS4Water II initiative.

 

Can ports—once gateways of exchange—be reimagined as porous spaces of interspecies cohabitation? POROUS invites artists, scientists, technologists, and citizens to collectively explore this question through immersive experiences, discursive conversations, and creative experimentation.

 

The symposium and live program blend keynote talks, roundtables, sound performances, film screenings, and hands-on workshops with a curated installation of contemporary artworks responding to the urgent ecological and social transformations along European coastlines. At the heart of the program are site-sensitive, artist-led inquiries into the role of ports as potential habitats and critical infrastructures—questioning their increasing isolation, their hyper-technologized present, and their possible futures as shared public spaces for humans and more-than-humans alike.

 

Featuring works by Adelita Husni-Bey, Plastique Fantastique, Lara Tabet, Territorial Agency, Stijn Demeulenaere, Siobhán McDonald, Hypercomf, and Carlos Casas, the exhibition will unfold as a guided path through Villa Arson.

 

Rooted in the transdisciplinary framework of S+T+ARTS4Water II, POROUS brings together a European network of ports and water bodies—spanning from the Venice Lagoon to the Bay of Koper, the Ciotat port at the Calanques National Park, Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt delta to the Dublin coast, and beyond—each serving as a microcosm for pressing environmental challenges and emerging alliances across species and disciplines.

 

This second edition of S+T+ARTS4Water, titled Ports in Transformation, is made possible through a consortium of cultural and scientific partners including TBA21–Academy, WAAG, Gluon, PINA, and more. As a central actor in the project, we continue our commitment to oceanic research and advocacy through new residencies and collaborations in Ocean Space (Venice) and online via Ocean-Archive.org.

 

Organized by TBA21–Academy and Villa Arson 

with the support of the European Commission Initiative S+T+ARTS4Water II

 

 

CURATOR

María Montero Sierra

 

ARTISTS

Carlos Casas, Stijn Demeulenaere, Adelita Husni-Bey, Hypercomf, Siobhán McDonald, Plastique Fantastique, Lara Tabet, Territorial Agency

 

LOCATION

Villa Arson

20 avenue Stephen Liégeard

06100

Nice, France

 

ACCESS

Tramway line n°1 - Station Le Ray

Bus n°8, direction Las Planas / Sappia - station Deux avenues

 

FREE ADMISSION

No reservation is required.

 

ACCESSIBILITY

Outside areas (gardens and terraces) and exhibition rooms are largely accessible to people with reduced mobility.

 

ABOUT VILLA ARSON

Under the supervision of the French Ministry of Culture and became a legal entity of the University Côte d'Azur in 2020, Villa Arson was conceived in the 1960s by André Malraux, then Minister of Cultural Affairs, as part of a major cultural decentralization program. Inaugurated in 1972, Villa Arson was designed from the outset as a highly innovative establishment that fulfilled several essential and complementary functions in support of creation: teaching, research, experimentation, production, distribution, promotion and support. The uniqueness of Villa Arson also lies in the association of its different areas of activity (the contemporary art center, the school, the library, research and residencies), whose actions intersect and enrich experiences. The Villa Arson Art Center offers an exhibition program that is broadly open to the international scene and focuses on emerging creations. It aims to highlight the crossroads between creation, research, experimentation and transmission.

 

ABOUT S+T+ARTS4Water II

S+T+ARTS (Science, Technology, and the Arts) is an initiative by the European Commission that highlights a nexus with extraordinarily high potential for innovation–an essential aspect of mastering the social, ecological, and economic challenges that Europe will be facing in the near future. Bringing together art, technology, and science, S+T+ARTS4WaterII – Ports in Transformation is dedicated to tackling the complex environmental and societal challenges present in Europe’s ports and port cities. 

 

ABOUT THE NICE BIENNIAL OF ARTS AND OCEAN

In June 2025, Nice will host the 3rd United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC 2025). This international summit will bring together leaders and governments from around the world to debate and decide on the future of our planet. To mark the occasion, the City of Nice is placing its 6th Biennial of Arts under the banner of the Ocean, uniting cultural players, institutions, and partners around this project.

The exhibition Becoming Ocean: a social conversation about the Ocean, organized by TBA21, Villa Arson, and the Tara Ocean Foundation, is one of the main events presented in the city as part of the Nice Biennial of Arts and the Ocean.

 

RELATED PROGRAM

NICE2025: TBA21 at the 3rd United Nations Ocean Conference, Nice

NICE2025: Becoming Ocean: a social conversation about the Ocean Exhibition at Villa Arson - Nice