Fishing For Fishies

Fishing For Fishies was born during the Arteria Festival curated
by Sabina Oroshi in collaboration with the Lapidarium Museum in
Novigrad, Croatia. It is an underwater sculpture previously realised
for the culinary installation Fishing Without Fish and subsequently
placed near the delta of the river Mirna during a one-day workshop
in which it was possible to discuss the ecological aspects that
characterise and unite the Venice Lagoon and the Mirna delta
area. Made with materials from the river and components that are
nutritious for the local fauna, the sculpture aims to energise fish,
birds and organisms that have suffered from rapid changes over the
years, such as intensive fishing, water pollution, the breeding of new
species, morphological changes by humans and alterations in sea.

Diet For Resistance

Subsoil and ocean exploitation, political and military conflicts over expanding territorial waters, and privatization of common goods cause not only environmental but also cultural damage: devaluing, erasing, and eventually forgetting ancient production techniques. Diverse local knowledges indeed emerge from territorial specificities, but are being eroded everywhere to make way for standardized techniques linked to industrial and large-scale distribution dynamics, causing a dangerous cultural removal: a collective amnesia that leads communities to forget their localized culture and connection to the ecosystem—the so-called shifting baseline syndrome.
These phenomena, evident in the Pacific areas and foregrounded in the Re-Stor(y)ing Oceania exhibition, are the critical basis of the ‘resistance diet’ project that can survive, adapt to, stem, and counteract the changes taking place. The design of a Diet For Resistance is not intended to be limited to a specific geographic area, but rather to be shared with places and people who face similar environmental, economic and social situations: loss of fertile soil and damage to marine ecosystems, pollution of land, air and water, decline of biodiversity, monocultures and overfishing, use of harmful substances and trawling, depopulation of territories and loss of traditional
knowledge, standardization of production and distribution. Venice has been the ground on which to start this research with the intention to create synergies with other geographies and communities.
The project was developed as part of the Convivial Table 2024 programme curated by Barbara Nardacchione in the Ocean Space and with the participation of a group of people selected through an open call who accompanied us on five appointments including installations, lagoon excursions, talks and workshops.

Seeds boombastic

Lagoon guerrilla gardening project on the occasion of the bragora festival / sagra prodiga in Venice. Algae clay, soil, water and seeds of halophytic plants and flowers stuck together in and around the square by the canals for a wild and invasive (herbal) Venice.

Serviteur Muet

Serviteur Muet is a collaboration between Barena Bianca and Sugar Koka, whose shared interest in culinary art and socio-ecological issues related to the Venetian Lagoon have encouraged experiments with new edible scenarios in the garden of Palazzo Venier dei Leonial at Guggenheim of Venice. Drawing inspiration from the construction of space through light and color in Edmondo Bacci’s paintings, the artists created an installation constructed with irregular levels made of butter and sugar. Transparent, semi-glasslike surfaces, alternated with bright, rotund shapes merge with the lagoon’s cartography and landscapes. Foams, creams, gummy bears, pearls, and deceptive-looking herbs are the fruits of a sweet and sour shrub, of which soon little to nothing will remain. It melts, breaks, feeds us, and finally disappears.

Sguazziamo!

Sguazziamo! (“Let’s splash!”) is a river ecology workshop developed in the context of Fare Acqua, the fourth edition of Traffic Festival, on the banks of the Cesano river, in the Marche region. The idea starts from the ancient game of “Pesca al contrario” (reverse fishing), in which the child in the centre impersonates a fish and, without using his sight, has to catch another participant. The other children form a circle around the fish and, using rods, place their baits. When the fish takes the bait, it ‘eats’ the fisherman and the roles are swapped.

Starting from this historical symbolic game, Barena Bianca develops a discourse on rivers and their inhabitants – fish and other organisms – by handcrafting masks that replicate the fish of local watercourses and baits that can be good or bad: through these, the children learn about the role of rivers and their inhabitants, and the role that local communities can play both positively and negatively. After carrying out the didactic and craft part of the workshop, the children are taken on an exploration of the ecosystem, finding a place to play this ‘reverse fishing’ game in harmony with the river.

The children thus become the fish of the river around which they live, and at the same time ecologists, farmers, scientists, politicians. Through this sort of role-play, they develop an emotional connection with the river, learning intuitively about the inevitable vital relationship between humans, non-humans and watercourses.

The workshop, conceived and developed on the banks of the Cesano river, can be replicated in any place crossed, surrounded or overlooking a body of water – rivers, lagoons, lakes or seas.

Never let me Gò, Tunaight

The project “Never let me Gò, Tunaight”, in collaboration with Ilaria Genovesio, intends to draw a parallel between the cities of Istanbul and Venice, through the identification of one or more extinct and alien marine species that the Sea of Marmara and the marine area of the northern Adriatic Sea and the Venetian Lagoon share. Translating the research and analysis of these elements into an artistic and visual language allowed us to ignite debates between Istanbul and Venice around urgent and shared issues such as pollution, globalisation, climate change, overfishing, food, tourism and biodiversity. The project took shape with a series of preliminary researches conducted in Venice, aimed at identifying the marine species in question in collaboration with museums, researchers, fishermen and local fish traders. In the second half of June, for a couple of weeks, the project moved to Istanbul with the support of the artist run space PASAJ, which accompanied us in the development of the research and in particular in building relationships with local organisations, initiatives and personalities that were fundamental to enrich the project presented in July in the art centre Barin Han.

During our time in PASAJ, we created mobile and flying sculptures depicting a goby (gò in Venetian), a tuna and various sea walnuts – an invasive ctenophore that thrives in warm waters and damages local marine fauna. Two iconic fishes, the Gò for Venice and the Tuna for Istanbul, which are present in both waters and share a glorious past and a rather critical and precarious present. In contrast, the sea walnuts are the image of a contaminated present, at odds with the fragile balance of the seas, and encroaching on fragile ecosystems such as the Venice Lagoon and the Bosphorus in a harmful manner.

Walking together with the two fishes towards the top of the island of Büyükada allowed us to observe from above what Istanbul is today, its waters and its inhabitants. At the same time, we established a bond between these two species and consequently between the two cities. A bond that will continue and develop over the next few years thanks to Ilaria Genovesio’s collaboration on the project and the support of PASAJ and Artport Making Waves.

Piantagruèl

Piantagruèl is a participatory process initiated by Meta Forte with Barena Bianca, Tocia! and Spontaneus Lab in the northern part of the Venetian Lagoon in 2021. The 2022 edition sees the addition of other initiatives in the Venetian environment such as We are here Venice and Prometheus Open Food Lab. Through excursions, workshops, meetings with local experts and other experimental methods linked to the idea of “place-based education”, Piantagruèl seeks to deepen local ecological knowledge of specific areas of the Cavallino peninsula and its surrounding areas, both towards the lagoon and inland. Specifically, the project and its participants focused on spontaneous herbs, the flora and fauna of the area and the characteristics of the ecosystem in two senses: on the one hand, understanding their changes and traditional uses, and on the other, inquiring possible developments in the present and future.

Developing over entire days, often without division between educational and convivial moments, Piantagruèl aims to create a horizontal learning environment in which each participant brings his or her own experience, and in which the ecosystem dimension plays a fundamental role: by immersing oneself in it, traditional learning is mixed with a more direct and immersive mode derived from the surrounding nature.

Primordial Broth

In 2021 Barena Bianca conceived the idea of a metaphoric “Primordial Broth”, a philosophic recipe in which the broth ecompasses all the ingredients that constitute it. The first version of it derived from the venetian lagoon, and it went as an artistic companion for Fiona Middleton and Pietro Consolandi’s essay “Re-Sourcing the Strands of Life: Biocentric politics in the primordial broth”, published by Strelka Mag. In the essay, the authors argue that the primordial soup, from which life emerged after a mysterious event still discussed by the scientific community, represents a key moment of interspecies collaboration in which different forms of life interacted in a chaotic way towards a common goal. In this sense, the very birth of life can be considered as the greatest political achievement reached by an interspecies assembly. From this standpoint, we can see ecosystems as a common heritage that was built by following assemblies of forms of life: the resources that were accumulated through millions of years of biotic action cannot therefore be exploited for the well-being of humans alone.

To embody this philosophical idea, Barena Bianca developed a broth that includes elements that have passed through the lagoon in different stages of its life: primordial, historical or contemporary. The lagoon itself is in fact a highly dynamic ecosystem, that was shaped through history by more-than-human agents such as the rivers and the sea, and by human action – responsible for its current state, more and more similar to a branch of the Adriatic Sea.

In this primordial broth, there is no hierarchy and all elements contribute towards the final result, in which many of the participants are disguised or dissolved: but their presence constitutes what the work’s fruitor will experience in the moment of tasting.

The broth is by nature site-specific: if the first version aimed to embody the different phases of the lagoon, the second – developed during Piantagruél 2021 – created a relationship with the Cavallino peninsula, shaped by the diversion of rivers and that embodies the three souls of the countryside, the lagoon and the sea in a narrow strip of sediments and sands.

“How is it there? Here…”

“Come va lì? Qui…” (“How is it there? Here…”), part of the global program WE ARE OCEAN, is a collaborative critical geography workshop developed by Barena Bianca for Venice’s inhabitants and those around the world who coexist with the same problems . Through a shared reflection on the threats that unite us,the workshop creates an idea of geography that does not see the globe from the point of view of the division into nation-states, but rather as an array of creatures facing common challenges. Thus, we learn that Venice can also be found in Jakarta and New York, Kyoto and Sao Paulo, and that none of us is alone in the struggle for a habitable future.

The digital map, a work that summarizes all the contributions sent by friends and allies from around the world to the students of Venice, is made in collaboration with the artist Donato Spinelli. It will grow in the coming years to map a network of solidarity in continuous expansion. Contributions will be shared with students participating in the physical workshop, which will be held in Venice as soon as the ongoing health crisis allows it, and a series of response “postcards” will be sent around the world, creating a direct connection between “there” and “here”.

The workshop is produced by ARTPORT_making waves as the Venetian iteration of their global programme WE ARE OCEAN, an official Action of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Sciences for Sustainable Development. Fundamental local and research support in Venice is provided by We are here Venice, and the workshop is hosted by TBA21–Academy’s Ocean Space and CNR-ISMAR (the Institute of Marine Science of Italy’s National Council of Research).

Onde (Waves)

Onde (“Waves”) is a methodology of research through the act of walking, rather than a work of art in itself. The idea was inspired by the sister project Ziarah Utara, carried out by Tita Salina and Irwan Ahmett in Jakarta from 2018 onwards, in the context of the global program WE ARE OCEAN, curated by ARTPORT_making waves. The first walk was made possible by the MobilityFirst! Grant awarded by the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) In an attempt to create a direct connection with the lagoon ecosystem, and specifically with the Murazzi of Lido and Pellestrina during the first walk, we created a small luminous mobile sculpture: a red wave that lights up in places charged with meaning, where the presence of the lagoon, the sea, or some of its particular inhabitants is perceived. It works by connecting to the past, perceiving the energy of the present or the possibility of future events.

The light forced us to stop at some points to understand where this energy was coming from, to photograph it and understand it better. The slowness of walking is essential to be able to feel a territory through one’s body, unlike when crossing it quickly with other vehicles, and allows one to deviate, stop and retrace one’s steps. The light also served to meet people who are experts in the territory and ecosystem, connected to these places, learning from them and portraying them with the sculpture.

By its nature, the project is longer in duration, lending itself to being repeated several times to understand changes in an area, broken into multiple sections, and used to learn from the inhabitants of these places. A first presentation of the exploration of the Murazzi was celebrated during World Earth Day, April 22, 2021, with a talk hosted by TBA21-Academy and Ocean Space with Tita Salina, Irwan Ahmett (from Jakarta), Åsa Andersson, Carl Michael von Hauswolff and curator of ARTPORT_making waves Anne-Marie Melster (Stockholm), creating a bridge between the three places connected by common issues. Next stops will be the Northern Lagoon, from Jesolo to Cavallino and inland, from Lova to Chioggia and an exploration of the saltmarshes in the Campalto area.