Agenda

ART ECOLOGIES series:

Sister Sites: Urban Feral Wetlands
Rosario Talevi

16 December, 5:30 PM CET
Sala Morelli, Malcanton Marcorà – Ground Floor
Calle Contarini, Dorsoduro 3484/D, Venice

Introduction
Cristina Baldacci
DFBC and NICHE, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice

Discussants
Nicola Di Croce
IUAV University of Venice and NICHE

Abstract

Drawing on her work at Floating in Berlin and the three editions of Climate Care, a festival she co-curated on site, architect Rosario Talevi introduces an informal network of “sister sites”: urban (feral) wetlands across different cities where self-organised groups engage in practices of reclamation, activation, stewardship and ecological care.

Despite their distinct histories and contexts, these sites share questions about how to inhabit, participate in and narrate environments in which significant human and more-than-human interactions unfold. How might these urban feral wetlands be transformed through collective practices of care, repair and maintenance?

Taking place during Talevi’s research residency at the German Study Centre in Venice, the presentation opens these questions to a conversation with the lagoon and with those who continue to investigate, tend to, defend and imagine its futures.

Bio

Rosario Talevi works as an architect, curator, editor and educator at the intersection of critical spatial practices, site-based pedagogy and ethics of care.
A founding member of Floating University, a natureculture learning site in a rainwater retention basin in Berlin, she co-directed the organisation (2019–2022) and co-curated the three editions of Climate Care (2019, 2021, 2023), a festival of theory and practice at the intersection of ethics of care and environmental humanities.
She is Associate Professor of Architecture/Urban Practice at the Bergen School of Architecture in Norway and is currently in residence at the German Study Centre in Venice.

Rosario was raised in Buenos Aires, lives in Berlin and is the single mother of Florentina (born 2003).

Image credit: Floating, 2024. Photo: Helena Majewska.