Agenda

25 Nov 2026 17:30

LECTURE-PERFORMANCE | Undercurrents: Poetics and Politics of the Submerged

Sala Morelli Malcanton Marcorà – Piano terra | Calle Contarini, Dorsoduro 3484/D, Venezia

Undercurrents: Poetics and Politics of the Submerged
LECTURE PERFORMANCE FOLLOWED BY A DISCUSSION

25 November 2026 | 5:30-7:00 PM CET
Sala Morelli Malcanton Marcorà

Sara Alberani
Indipendent curator and cultural organizer based in Rome.

 

Abstract:
Undercurrents: Poetics and Politics of the Submerged is a curatorial research project by Sara Alberani, awarded the first Tentacular Fellowship, launched in June 2026 by TBA21–Academy – Ocean  Space in collaboration with NICHE Centre for Environmental Humanities and the UNESCO Chair on “Water, Heritage and Sustainable Development” at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. Grounded in political ecology and historical materialism, the research examines the transformation of Ravenna’s rural landscape into an industrial hub, exploring the intersections of labour, petrochemical production, environmental exploitation, and the floods that struck the region in 2023 and 2024. Drawing on personal memory, collective struggle, oral histories, archival research, and artistic practices, it investigates the poetics and politics of water.

Extending to Porto Marghera and the Venice Lagoon, the research follows the networks of gas pipelines and extractive infrastructures connecting petrochemical hubs across the northern Adriatic, including Ravenna and Ferrara, to the central and eastern Mediterranean.

Bringing together hydrofeminism, historical materialism, and decolonial methodologies, Undercurrents investigates what remains submerged beneath dominant narratives of industrial progress: labour histories, toxic legacies, environmental transformations, and collective forms of resistance. Exploring the poetics and politics of water, its extraction, containment, and resistance, the research approaches the submerged as a political category through which to understand the continuities of fossil modernity and imagine other relationships between human and more-than-human worlds.
The lecture-performance will be introduced by Cristina Baldacci, DFBC and NICHE,  Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and followed by a discussion with Antonia Majaca and Federica Timeto, DFBC and NICHE,  Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.

Short Bio:
Sara Alberani is an independent curator and cultural organizer based in Rome. In 2020, she co-founded LOCALES, a platform dedicated to site-specific interventions and decolonial practices in public space. She co-curated the Trampoline House collective at documenta fifteen, and her curatorial practice explores the intersections of political ecology, labour struggles, and social and climate justice. She is currently investigating the impacts of extractivism on the water ecosystems of Northeast Italy and the Adriatic Sea as the recipient of the Tentacular Fellowship 2026–27 at Ocean Space / TBA21-Academy, Venice.

Photo Credit: André Corboz - Porto Marghera, veduta aerea 1982. Fondo André Corboz. CC BY-SA 4.0

Lingua

L'evento si terrà in inglese

Organizzatore

NICHE, DFBC, Ocean Space, TBA21

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