Ocean Space public program

TBA21–Academy’s public program at Ocean Space encourages the creation of transformative visions for the future nurtured through participatory practices and experiences. The program is conceived and developed alongside each exhibition on view at Ocean Space in Venice from April to October, applying TBA21–Academy’s practice of disseminating local ecological knowledge through cultural programming. Our aim is to raise environmental awareness and support regenerative ways of living by developing a community of care and concern around bodies of water, starting from the Venice Lagoon. The majority of this year’s public program flows from the three-year curatorial fellowship program The Current III Mediterraneans: Thus waves come in pairs (after Etel Adnan), 2021–2023, led by Barbara Casavecchia.

Visitors will be able to experience the results of the three-year research commitment through the exhibition Thus waves come in pairs, curated by Barbara Casavecchia, comprising two new commissions at Ocean Space in Venice. The East Wing of the Church of San Lorenzo features American-Lebanese, Paris-based artist Simone Fattal with the installation Sempre il mare, uomo libero, amerai! (Free man, you’ll love the ocean endlessly!), a group of large ceramic and glass sculptures created for the occasion. The installation is titled after a verse from the poem L’homme et la mer by Charles Baudelaire, describing the waves of the sea as a mirror for the soul. In the French original, la mer (the sea) is a feminine entity that generates and nourishes. It is a call to lay a loving gaze on nature - of which we are a part - and meditate on the constant changes that bind us.

In the West Wing of San Lorenzo, Berlin-based artist duo Petrit Halilaj & Álvaro Urbano present Lunar Ensemble for Uprising Seas, a new installation co-commissioned by TBA21–Academy and Audemars Piguet Contemporary. In Lunar Ensemble for Uprising Seas, the artists explore cohesion as well as resistance or disharmony between different species or between living organisms and objects. The sculptures’ metallic skins reflect the sunlight onto the church’s walls, ceilings, and floors, modifying the perception of the space over the day. They also double as musical instruments, producing sounds from music boxes and other DIY techniques; however, only human interaction makes them come to life with sound. 

The accompanying publication Thus Waves Come in Pairs. Thinking with the Mediterraneans, published by Sternberg Press, encompasses a conversation between the late Etel Adnan and Simone Fattal alongside contributions by Jumana Emil Abboud, Omar Berrada, Barbara Casavecchia, Pietro Consolandi, Övül Ö. Durmuşoğlu, Petrit Halilaj & Álvaro Urbano, Zeyn Joukhadar, Ibrahim Nehme, and Giovanna Silva, with a foreword by Markus Reymann. The book will be launched at Ocean Space in conjunction with the artist talks on Friday, May 19, 2023. 

TBA21’s ongoing commitment to raising questions around food sovereignty and the food industry’s ecological impact, which we have explored through last year’s research program Convivial Tables, is strengthened in this year’s collaboration with the Spanish Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2023 in FOODSCAPES, curated by Eduardo Castillo-Vinuesa and Manuel Ocaña. In shared sessions, co-produced with TBA21–Academy at Ocean Space, FOODSCAPES will invite experts and architects to discuss ecosystemic implications of the digestion, production, distribution, foundation, and consumption of food and the role that architecture can play in implementing a more resilient agri-food model. 

Thus waves come in pairs
Curated by Barbara Casavecchia. Commissioned and produced by TBA21–Academy.

The work by Petrit Halilaj & Álvaro Urbano is co-commissioned by TBA21–Academy and Audemars Piguet Contemporary; developed by the artists working closely together with the curatorial team at Audemars Piguet Contemporary and curator Barbara Casavecchia.

Public program
Artist talk: Simone Fattal & Omar Berrada
May 19, 11am, in conversation with Barbara Casavecchia

Artist talk: Petrit Halilaj & Álvaro Urbano
May 19, 12pm, in conversation with Barbara Casavecchia & Audrey Teichmann

Lunar Ensemble for Uprising Seas
May 19, 7pm, performance by Petrit Halilaj & Álvaro Urbano

Critical Sessions
May 20, 11:30am, five conversations around the Digestion, Consumption, Production, Distribution and Foundation of Food
Spanish Pavilion, Giardini della Biennale

Xholobeni Yards: Titanium and the planetary making of shininess/dustiness
May 20, 5pm, presentation of the project by Andrés Jaque / Office for Political Innovation

Ocean Space’s 2023 public program is kindly supported by Select Aperitivo and Venezia FC.