On November 24, 2023, on the occasion of the finissage of the 18. International Architecture Exhibition in Venice, KoozArch presented a conversation dedicated to water in its both most tangible and elusive form.

Guided by both fiction and non-fiction books published by wetlands, as well as a number of artworks which are part of the collection of the hosting venue, The Venice Venice Hotel, the evening was structured as a critical conversation with curators Josephine Michau (curator, Denmark Pavilion), Tinatin Gurgenidze (co-curator, Georgia Pavilion), Andreia Garcia (curator, Portugal Pavilion), Peter Carroll (co-curator, Ireland Pavilion), and Enrico Bettinello (wetlands publishing house) on and around the politics of water but also the intimate stories that each of us has with the fluid which is at the basis of all life on Earth.

FEDERICA ZAMBELETTI Good evening all, and thank you all for being here on this Biennale Finissage evening to talk about the geopolitics of water, in between art, fiction, and non-fiction.

I would like to take a few seconds to introduce our speakers this evening and the reason for this conversation. For the most part, the wonderful people who are sitting alongside me tonight are the curators of a number of national participations in this year’s Biennale, who, through their respective researches and exhibitions, unfolded the complexities of water.

Josephine Michau, curator of the Danish participation titled 'Coastal Imaginaries'; Andreia Garcia, curator of the Portuguese participation titled 'Fertile Futures'; Tinatin Gugenidze, co-curator of the Georgian participation titled 'january february march'; and Peter Carroll, co-curator of the Irish pavilion titled 'In Search of Hy-Brasil'.

Beyond events such as that of the Biennale and despite the fact that last year, for the first time, the number of Venetian residents fell below the value of 50,000 inhabitants, there are a number of local realities who are fighting to keep the city culturally active 365 days a year. One of these, to which we have grown particularly affectionate, is the publishing project of wetlands, represented tonight by Enrico Bettinello. wetlands is a publishing project focused on themes of social and environmental sustainability, and the challenges of the Anthropocene. The editorial proposal takes the city of Venice as a metaphor for global problems and solutions, coupling international perspectives with local ideas, renowned names with new writers, and narration with research.

This holistic ambition, I would dare say, is one which is very much shared by the owners of the hosting venue of this evening, The Venice Venice Hotel – who, after years abroad, decided to move back to their dear Serenissima and indulge in a project which transcends the typical hotel dimension to become a cultural manifesto in and of itself, where art, architecture, and hospitality all co-exist. We are extremely grateful to them and to the entire Venice Venice team for their generous support and hospitality.

Tonight, is about the far and near, and the stories which can reshape our relationship to our utmost primordial element: water.

Let’s thus start the conversation with a work from the collection of the Venice Venice Hotel: “Spugna d'emergenza in caso di alta Marea a Venezia” by Fabrizio Plessi. The montage features a monolithic sponge to be activated on occasion of exceptional high tides. The work was realised in 1976, 10 years after the “Grande Alluvione” of 1966 and four years after the report of the Club of Rome “The Limits of Growth”. Both moments should have served as cautionary tales to the planetary crisis we find ourselves now submerged in.

More than 50 years on, the element of hope embedded in the Rome report, that is, that Man can create a society in which he can live indefinitely on earth if he imposes limits on himself and his production of material goods to achieve a state of global equilibrium, has been breached. On November 12th, 2019, Venice was once again submerged when water reached a height of 187 cm, and exactly a year ago, if the MoSE had not been activated, Venice would have been exposed to the third largest exceptional high tide, when water levels of 173 cm were recorded. In an attempt to safeguard La Serenissima, by the end of the century, the MoSE will most probably be activated for six months a year, radically altering the unique ecosystem of the lagoon.

Last week, we had the pleasure of attending the Sharjah Architecture Triennial, where in the inaugural conversation, Lesley Lokko – curator of this year’s Venice Biennale – talked about not having the words to describe the world as we wish it to be. Lokko challenged us to re-think scarcity, not as a lack of something, but as an abundance of imagination.

Let us look at two of the three readings which wetlands will be sharing with us tonight. In the foreword to the Italian edition, published by wetlands, of “Mal de Terre'' by Nicolaj Schultz, Emanuele Coccia writes that perhaps, the climate crisis we are experiencing is not so much a transformation of climate as much as the visible manifestation of the deeply and hopelessly erratic and indomitable nature of the world to which we belong. Coccia suggests we change our view of nature and therefore, of the entire planet – prioritising meteorology as the new science and as the new literature of the Earth.

Let us thus continue with the first reading:

ENRICO BETTINELLO Thank you very much, Federica, for inviting us, and thank you to everybody for listening to these very short excerpts, which will be in Italian, but you can follow the English text. The first excerpt is from 'Oceano', the Italian translation of the original text written by American author Steve Mentz. 'Oceano' is a very peculiar book on the ocean as a very diversified and interesting element, which is not only biological and natural but also cultural.

Josephine, in a conversation we had back in June, you mentioned how, when working on 'Coastal Imaginaries', you had many moments of doubt as you initially questioned the value of the Biennale concept – in particular, its nationalistic and competitive structure. To address this, you devised a curatorial concept that effectively tackled global challenges while maintaining relevance for both Denmark and the host city, Venice.

Andreia, in a similar manner, 'Fertile Futures' considers global themes with local expression. Specifically, the project looks at seven hydrogeographies through the lens of seven architectural studios to reflect on the consequences of climate change both within and outside the territory.

JOSEPHINE MICHAU Considering the exposure that the Venice Biennale offers, I thought it was appropriate to focus on a shared challenge which would not only connect both Venice and Denmark but the entire globe. I ultimately decided to address the two interconnected global challenges of anthropogenic climate change with sea level rise and biodiversity loss. The research was developed in close collaboration with a research group called “Mitigating Sea Level Rise” who has been travelling the world to see and study how diverse cultures are dealing with these issues, looking specifically at how we are planning our cities, how we are building our houses to both adapt and mitigate these challenges. Beyond the urban, the research group was also really focused on the landscape and what we can learn from this. It appears as though there is some kind of illiteracy that has been growing ever since industrialization which has led us to pumping and draining rather than embracing the more intuitive understanding of the topology, hydrology, geology of a place when building. We are kind of suffering from that. Rather than continuing on wanting to master Earth, we need to relearn ways of adapting and connecting with nature. That was a very natural state of understanding our interconnectedness. From these observations, a toolkit of seven typologies was formulated. And it's really not about inventing new technologies. It's very much about going back in history and looking into vernacular methods. So the research presented within the pavilion is very much inspired by the entire globe, beyond the localities of Denmark and Venice.

ANDREIA GARCIA I want to start by acknowledging the work that KoozArch is undertaking in terms of the voices you are putting in the limelight, which are helping us shape this fertile future that aims to be more collaborative and which calls for different ways to look at design and architecture and the boundaries of the discipline without being bordered by itself.

'Fertile Futures' calls for a methodological way to see our laboratory of the future. The project was based on collaborative dynamics which started from the exhibition at Palazzo Franchetti to expand to different formats and geographies. Throughout the project, the process is what is at the heart, which is what calls for more diverse, more plural, more fertile, more feminine, generous, more abundant, productive, positive responses.

Nonetheless, since the beginning, we felt the need to call the other voices, the more experienced ones, the ones who are facing the same problems of scarcity for a longer time. We are talking about Southern knowledge. We then created this permanent dialogue that we call Assemblies of Thoughts that started in Lisbon in January last year, which then continued here in Venice. This laboratory is a kind of never-ending process because the question is always there. Because from there, we found different and new networks that we need to call attention to, especially in terms of the political dimension of this problem. Through this platform, we are sharing knowledge, we are discussing the problem of management and protection, and even transformation of fresh water — when it becomes a product. With this methodology, we are contributing to the debate from the local to the global. From our territory and our problems, we want to create dialogues with geographies which are facing similar urgencies.

At the local dimension, the project is a call to attention which demands a sensitivity that is missing in Portuguese academia and through Portuguese representation at the Biennale, which has, up until now, been based mainly on the star architects that we all know, from whom we also learn together. Our project suggests we call attention to one specific and urgent topic, and mobilise the new generations to this urgency, showing that Portuguese architecture is much more than prizes and awards and beautiful buildings and beautiful design. Now it’s also about new architectural visions facing contemporary urgencies. It’s about architecture done relevant. It’s about a political problem, a social problem, a global problem that demands we think together.

FZ What's interesting is that many national participations embraced the dimension of the laboratory as advocated for by Lesley Lokko, challenging the canonical academic institution, foregrounding a more collaborative way of creating and exchanging knowledge across borders.

This brings us to the second artwork of the evening, which is another artwork present in the collection of the Venice Venice Hotel. “I mille fiumi più lunghi al mondo” by Alighiero Boetti exists as both a publication and two tapestries; the work is the classification, in descending order, of the 1000 longest rivers in the world. Each river is recorded by name, source, outlet to the sea, and length, as well as by notations indicating both the various names and the different measurements of the stretches into which each river is divided according to the territory it is flowing through. Rarely do the two data coincide.

Number 361 on this list is the Douro river. Of its 897 km length, 572 km flows through Spain, 213 km through Portugal and 112 km through specially designated international territory – a stretch of land which lies at the border between the two countries, separating them but ultimately uniting them. In the 1960’s the two countries jointly decided to exploit the water resource to produce electrical energy leading to the creation of numerous dams as well as a number of conventions and policies for both its exploitation and preservation.

The Tâmega Basin is also one of the seven hydro geographies explored through Portugal’s pavilion. The project focuses on the transition of the Tâmega Basin from being an element at the heart of all the irrigated land, to primary resource for one of Europe’s largest green hydro-energy plants demonstrating the contrast between two ways of managing water: as a local and common asset and as a commercial product for creating energy. The project clearly exemplifies how today, the geography of the local has been fundamentally reformatted.

I hand over the microphone to Enrico and his reading of Nikolaj Shultz’s 'Mal di Terra' as translated into Italian by wetlands.

EB 'Mal di Terra' is not a book about Venice, but is rather a book about this personal crisis that strikes the author in a moment of his life, which leads him to try to escape his daily life and go to the island of Porquerolle in the south of France.

FZ I would dare say in a super-hot Parisian evening, in which heat temperatures are scorching to 35° and the city has become unbearable.

EB He thinks that sailing in Porquerolle can be a good solution, but other problems and issues emerge.

In this sense, I would like to return to the hydrography of the Tâmega Basin and the project presented by the Georgian pavilion. Both january, february, march and Fertile Futures focus on reservoirs, exploring the geopolitics of their exploitation in terms of its production and distribution of energy. Beyond the material connection of water, the Douro connects Spain and Portugal as interdependent energy systems, while a number of Soviet HPP projects in Georgia have been revived as investment opportunities designed to attract foreign capital, ultimately selling off parts of the country to the highest bidder.

What types of flows do we speak of when we mention flows of energy and the outflow of the landscape? How do these require a renewed understanding and definition of the local and global?

TINATIN GURGENIDZE Where to start? I think it's important to mention that when we read Lesley Lokko’s curatorial statement, we directly connected it with our own context of Georgia, as a country of the global south. Through our installation and publication, we aimed to highlight the problem of access to our main and natural resource, which is water.

Georgia is full of different bodies of water, but the problem is that not everybody has equal access to it, not even to drinking water. On the other hand, water has become a commodity, a form of capital, and a source of income for the privileged few. Especially in recent decades, we've seen a sprawl of and revival of hydroelectric power stations. The narrative lays on independent clean energy, but there are many layers. The inspiration for the project derived from an almost 2-year-long protest that started against the building of a huge hydroelectric dam in western Georgia, for which the government basically sold, for a time period of 99 years, an entire valley.

The building of the dam entailed: the relocation of a lot of people, a drastic change in the entire ecosystem, the extinction of a number of different species, and crops such as that of wine grapes, which is one of the most important crops in Georgia. It was one of the few times that the local protest came to Tbilisi, the capital city. And that's when we all started to really dig deep into what was happening and realised that they were really building this. When people understood that it was really problematic, that's when the protest became really, really big. For the moment, construction has stopped. Although this is a modern form of colonisation. The land is sold for 99 years and the resources used and the energy produced are entirely exported before, after some years, being bought back by Georgia.

FZ In one of the conversations we had, which is also published on KoozArch, there was also a reflection on how these kinds of investments are undertaken in terms of the attention that is given to the environment where little attention is given to the impact on the ground and a lot to how much the investment can yield economically. A lot of the time, the Environmental Impact Assessments are thus done approximately, quickly, and behind closed doors. How can architecture serve as a mediator in relation to the footprint that geopolitical agendas have on the territory? Is there space for architecture to intervene? Or is this part of a bigger, let's say, capitalist infrastructure to which we are closed out from?

TG I think architecture has so many different layers, and I am not too sure that Architecture can solve problems. The problem is deeper than planning a hydroelectric station, which is eco-friendly and not damaging to the ecosystem. At this moment, what we can do is talk and raise awareness around the topic. In Georgia, we don't have energy politics or a clear energy strategy, and that's what we need. We need to ask questions around if we really need so many electrical stations? Or should we build smaller ones which damage less? Our aim is to gather different actors and build a body of knowledge which can work towards raising awareness on these topics. That's where our agency is as architects.

Etymological roots are also mentioned. Etymological roots, etymological ideas that we take for granted and that we are not questioning. And maybe we are dealing with an epistemological problem right now. We need to face different ways to organise our own priorities in our society. I agree with you when you say that we are facing this problem, based on this capitalist organisational system. So maybe we should not talk about just the Anthropocene, but the Capitalocene. There are many concepts, words and ideas that we should collectively rethink.

Focusing specifically on the International Douro and the Douro Tâmega Basin. This relationship between Portugal and Spain, is one of not just dependency of energy but also of sharing of water. The research underlines the relevance of water, not just in the soil, but in the ecosystem. Today we have two ways of looking at water there, through a consumerist lens which looks at it as a material resource, for many commercial purposes as, for example to produce electricity, and through the lens of this as a natural common good. Two different scales of seeing the same matter. Right?

Today, an agreement between Portugal and Spain, the Convenção de Albufeira, establishes the (minimum) flows of shared rivers, trying to guarantee the agro-economical subsistence of both countries’ sides. Besides dealing with the effective compliance of the treaty, as an international question, the architectural team working on this hydrogeography realised, on site, a wider question that they wanted to address when proposing solutions to face water scarcity – the need to retain water through natural systems.

Aware of the steep topography and the difficult access to river water, they purpose us a direct lesson from nature, by making evident the network conversation of the different tree roots that allow for the retention of water.

They are the perfect reservoirs. Retaining the water in the winter and slowly releasing it in the summer, like a sponge. So maybe we also need to look to what is underneath, under earth, to what is already there. If we look at that with attention, maybe we'll find a solution. It is call for attention to the natural engineering, it is simultaneously very exquisite, very intelligent, very evident, very sponge like - it's a successful solution. Maybe it's not about a new dam, It's about a new kind of speech. Maybe this one could have a better impact on preserving ecosystems.

Then you also mentioned the Tâmega Basin and the biggest hydroelectric power plant in Europe, the Tâmega giga battery which, despite being in Portugal, is managed by a Spanish company. The plant has a big impact on all the microsystems of the territory. We are, once again, talking about a water as the local common asset, but also as a commercial product. The local architectural collective Space Transcribers focused on this controversy. Different layers of narratives based on a huge map, which is articulated through a series of 3d printed bio-plastics artefacts that one can see in Venice and which act as game-playing metaphors for managing distribution. Prior to Venice, a playtour was organised in the area and these artefacts were used to create a claim against the way water is managed to date and also how it could be managed in the future. In several moments of the route, a game was played and through this game, attention was called on the contradictions embedded in the site. The game served as a methodological tool to understand the different stakeholders and the change that we need to shape.

FZ There is an overall attempt to reconnect to the landscape, but before we connect to the landscape, we need to understand this. In an attempt to preserve and re-establish the deep resonance that exists between humankind and the natural world, the Irish participation looks to voice, writing, and song, drawing our attention to the Irish language. Contemporarily, the editorial proposal for wetlands starts from the Venice Lagoon, its criticalities, and its resources, to rethink the way in which the communities that inhabit this uniqueness are represented and represent themselves. What role can language and narratives play in shaping much-needed imaginaries which transcend contemporary national borders?

PETER CARROLL Can I begin by saying how beautiful it is to listen to your spoken Italian, Enrico? It's amazing. I think so much of our conversation is captured in these pages from the ship, to land sickness, and to your rich text about Carpaccio and the Scuola Grande of Giovanni Evangelista. They are such beautiful texts. And I was struck just by listening rather than reading your text, listening to you speak Italian. In this context of our spoken word we have Andreia here from Portugal, Tinatin from Georgia, Enrico and Federica from Italy, Josephine from Denmark - and we're all speaking English! My mother tongue is Irish, and I'm here with Mary Laheen, who is also from Ireland, and we speak English as a consequence of our colonial past with Great Britain. As it happens spoken language is at the heart of our Irish Installation at the Venice Biennale. I question why we use English as a technocratic language to describe everything and why we don't go back to our indigenous language that allows us renew a lost equilibrium between ourselves and the natural world.

I would like to bring the discussion back to the idea that Enrico began with in reading Mentz's introduction to ‘Ocean’. The Biennale has been an opportunity to get a seat at a very large table of participating countries, all of whom here tonight are touched by water – the ocean is our shared water body. And water does not know boundaries. It is not a thing that sets a boundary. We all share it. In similar ways, I think this Biennale has been most successful in bringing levelling, urgent discussion to the table. I also like to be optimistic, I know we've been talking a lot this evening about problems, but I think we have to look at this Biennale as an opportune time to look at the potential of architects and architecture. People were invited to this Biennale as practitioners, not as architects of built form per se. We as practitioners have an opportunity to think across disciplines. And I do think that we do have a place to offer at that large table where, for example, big policy decisions around hydroelectric power or water management are being made.

The Irish pavilion specifically looks at islands - geographically remote and mainly peripheral to contemporary discourse, our islands are by necessity robust, resilient and inventive places. The title of our installation, “In Search of Hy-brasil”, instantly alludes to a fictional island which people say appears and disappears but which exists in the imagination. Our installation is a direct provocation to all of us to reimagine the vast combined territory of land and ocean we call our home.

Language has been the crucible of our islands. They are the places where to hear the mother tongue, the Irish. Our spoken word today in Ireland is English - but there are so many more ways to describe our relationship to nature through our original tongue. All of us need to urgently find a way of re-imagining our relationship with nature. It's not going to be solved through technocratic language or technology. The climate crisis is not going to be solved by additional insulation, heat pumps or smart technology alone. We were talking earlier today with the Scottish pavilion and the Australian pavilion, and despite the distances and the differences amongst us, we were all speaking of the same theme. Even from our conversation tonight, it is clear that there is a shared concern amongst us all to reimagine the vast combined territory of land and ocean we call our shared global home –this is very reassuring. We are not necessarily talking about buildings, but we are talking about our role going forward as practitioners - and I'm really looking forward now to Enrico’s final reading this evening!

Bio

Peter Carroll, BArch MRIAI. Peter represented Ireland at Venice, as part of a team of five architects curating this year’s pavilion, In Search of Hy-Brasil. Peter graduated from University College Dublin in 1995. He worked in the studios of O’Donnell + Tuomey in Dublin and Rafael Moneo in Madrid before establishing A2 Architects in 2005. He is Director of A2 Architects and Senior Lecturer, School of Architecture University of Limerick since 2007. Peter is currently running the third year studio in SAUL focussing on Clare Island and its ongoing relationship to the Praeger and Feehan surveys.

Andreia Garcia is a PhD architect, curator and teacher. Her interests focus on the contemporary practice of architecture in an era marked by significant technological advances and a growing ecological crisis. She has lectured at the School of Architecture at the University of Minho and at the Architectural Association. Currently, she is a professor and vice-president of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Beira Interior. She is also the founder of the Architectural Affairs studio, the Galeria de Arquitectura and director of the art(e)facts Biennale. Most recently, she is the head curator of the Portuguese Official Representation at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 2023.

Tinatin Gurgenidze is an architect and urban researcher based between Berlin and Tbilisi. She is author of several publications and projects dealing with urban topics in Tbilisi and other east European cities, she is also a co-founder and one of the artistic directors of the Tbilisi Architecture Biennial. The team of the biennial won and developed the Georgian Pavilion at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia: "january february march", a research-based exhibition about the artificially altered settlement in the Dusheti region of Georgia.

Josephine Michau is the Co-founder and Director of Copenhagen Architecture Festival (CAFx) since 2014 concerned with the more ethical dimensions of architecture. Every year it hosts a series of events, workshops and exhibitions exploring different annual themes. She is the Head Curator of the Danish Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennial in 2023, Coastal Imaginaries presenting nature-based design solutions to adapt to and mitigate climate change and using those to explore new imaginaries for a Copenhagen coastal landscape. It was made in close collaboration with a range of researchers, practitioners and artists.

Wetlands is a publishing house dedicated to the themes of social and environmental sustainability. The publishing proposal moves in the territories of intersection between fiction and nonfiction, promoting environmental, urban, social, anthropological and cultural texts.

Federica Zambeletti is the founder and managing director of KoozArch. She is an architect, researcher and digital curator whose interests lie at the intersection between art, architecture and regenerative practices. In 2015 Federica founded KoozArch with the ambition of creating a space where to research, explore and discuss architecture beyond the limits of its built form. Parallel to her work at KoozArch, Federica is Architect at the architecture studio UNA and researcher at the non-profit agency for change UNLESS where she is project manager of the research "Antarctic Resolution". Federica is an Architectural Association School of Architecture in London alumni.