VENICE.- From 10 May to 23 November 2025, at the Tese delle Vergini in the Arsenale in Venice, architectural, scientific, and cultural reflections on the sea will take center stage in Terrae Aquae. Italy and the Intelligence of the Sea, the title of the exhibition project Italian Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia, promoted by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity - Ministry of Culture and curated by Guendalina Salimei.
The Italian participation is dedicated to a Mediterranean extended to the neighboring oceans: the centrality of the structural relationship between water and land, between the natural and the artificial, between infrastructure and landscape, between city and coast, affects the identity of the country and the delicate balances between environment, humanity, culture, and economy, which must both be protected in their integrity and re-designed for that essential adaptation to a future marked by new and pressing needs. Looking at Italy from the sea implies a shift in perspective, requiring a rethinking of the boundary between land and water as an integrated system of architecture, infrastructure, and landscape.
The exhibition will welcome works from individuals and groups, both established and emerging, triggering an intergenerational, intercultural dialogue with no gender distinctions, in which the past and present will be brought together. It will involve designers, scholars, and cultural operators — but also young people, poets, artists, research institutions, and third-sector organizations — in rethinking the relationship between land and sea, with the display of both completed redevelopment projects and contributions created ad hoc through the use of multidisciplinary and multimodal methods, as well as the outcomes of institutional and academic research.
The listening of different voices, welcomed in an inclusive spirit of people, ideas, and expressive means, aims to stimulate the awakening of a collective intelligence capable of triggering a renewal that starts from the Italian coasts and expands globally. Often neglected, degraded, and abused, our coasts are actually places of encounter between ecosystems, cultures, activities, and religions, where human action knows and must also express itself through poetry and respect. A relationship so visceral that it found its highest symbolism in Venice with the ritual of the marriage of the sea, celebrated every year by the Doge aboard the Bucintoro at the mouth of the port of San Niccolò at the Lido, where, after pouring a vase of holy water, he would cast the ring blessed by the Patriarch into the waves, pronouncing the words “Desponsamus te, mare nostrum, in signum veri perpetuique dominii” (We marry you, our sea, as a sign of true and perpetual dominion).
The themes we are called to reflect on stem from the need to ensure sustainable management and environmental and cultural enhancement of coastal and port areas, essential for the resilience of territories, the preservation of natural heritage, and, in general, a more balanced dialogue between land and sea. Among these themes, some emerge with greater urgency: rethinking the divisions caused by port areas, coastal roads, tourist settlements, and illegal structures that disrupt the continuity between cities and the sea, as well as between natural ecosystems; reinterpreting threshold devices, transitional elements between land and sea such as dams, piers, breakwaters, coastal barriers, lighthouses, and artificial platforms; rewriting waterfronts as a process of urban regeneration that can transform coastal areas, both urban and non-urban, into livable, accessible, and sustainable places; rethinking hospitality and port infrastructures to adapt to climate change, reducing the risk of hydrogeological instability and impact on the natural ecosystem; repurposing industrial, port, and productive archaeology abandoned along the coasts; redefining active protection strategies for environmental heritage and rediscovering submerged, natural, and archaeological heritage.
All of this was the focus of the selected contributions gathered through a Call for Visions and Projects launched in January and concluded last March. The call was addressed to designers, scholars, and cultural practitioners, with the aim of collecting design, theoretical, and multimedia proposals for rethinking the relationship between land and sea in coastal and port areas. It was an invitation extended across Italy to imagine the “form of the sea,” envisioning futuristic or utopian scenarios, projects, and aspirations for all those border zones between land and sea, where the rules of inhabiting are constantly reshaped by the laws of nature and of humanity.
Over 600 contributions were collected by the Italian Pavilion, demonstrating just how urgent the theme is perceived to be. Ranging from completed projects and structured research conducted within academies or cultural institutions, to highly visionary proposals aimed at imagining alternative and unprecedented scenarios, as well as engineering solutions addressing complex infrastructural issues, the submissions came from both established firms and young architects or students. What emerges is a rich plurality of approaches, perspectives, and levels of design development.
The results of the call were organized into three sections. The first is the Census on the Present, which showcases completed or ongoing projects in Italy related to the reconversion of abandoned areas, port redevelopment, waterfront regeneration, coastal rewilding, and much more. Next is the Gallery, the most extensive and dense body of contributions, a collection of deep data stemming from established practices across various territorial contexts of the Peninsula. These projects, visions, and reflections offer insights into how to more consciously address the growing complexity of coastal areas, increasingly subject to environmental, social, and economic pressures. Lastly, the Research Laboratory serves as a workshop for the interactive exploration of topics related to the intelligence of the sea, in collaboration with universities, research centers, and civil society associations, where scholars from various fields and disciplines present the outcomes of their research.
The exhibition design will articulate the different sections in distinct spaces, interpreting the concept of the “threshold” and compelling visitors to actively “cross” it.
Upon entering the first Tesa, the visitor is confronted with a wall—a horizontal element that cuts through the space, evoking both large-scale infrastructures and towering cliffs. This is the Two-Headed Wall, designed to host two different forms of intelligence. Constructed with tubular frames and canvases, one “head” narrates the history and present of Italy as seen from the sea—its beauty and its fragility—through a video projection. The other “head,” set up like a 19th-century gallery, looks toward the Italy of the future, generating ideas and offering visions through a collection of imaginative projects, maps, and drawings. All the selected design contributions from the call are displayed on monitors and within the gallery wall. At the short end of the Tesa, visitors encounter a large LED wall showcasing completed and ongoing project —ambassadors of the change hoped to become standard practice. On the opposite side, from a platform, visitors can view the film work Via Maris, a digital fresco on Italy’s maritime culture by visual anthropologist Francesco de Melis, created with the support of the Central Institute for Intangible Heritage of the Ministry of Culture.
At the center, extending the full length of the second Tesa, is the Research Pier: designed as a series of terraced platforms accessible via a long ramp, it features tables equipped with interactive monitors where visitors can watch videos presenting the outcomes of research by universities, institutions, foundations, and numerous other cultural players. The space also includes areas for talks and a theater with a screen that will show selected films curated by Istituto Luce Cinecittà. Along the walls, Luigi Filetici’s photographic narrative Mare Mosso. Mediterraneo Report and the geopolitical maps by cartographer Laura Canali use two distinct languages to depict the restless present of our mare nostrum, offering both analytical and interpretive readings of the shifting strategies, conflicts, and balances shaping the region.
The spaces of the Italian Pavilion are animated by works from contemporary artists who interpret the exhibition’s theme through a transversal and unexpected lens. Thomas De Falco explores his practice through works and performances using textile materials; for the occasion, he has created a piece representing a dove, displayed inside the Pavilion itself, along with a performance titled The Earth still Sings, featuring interdisciplinary soprano
Silvia Colombini, for the opening of the Public Program at the International Sculpture Park of Villa Fürstenberg. Agnes Questionmark, whose practice spans performance, sculpture, video, and installation, presents Draco Piscis, also for the International Sculpture Park of Villa Fürstenberg—an imposing installation representing a hybrid mythological creature that appears to emerge from the sea, visible in the Italian Pavilion via a video projection. Both artists’ works were made possible thanks to the sponsorship of Banca Ifis.
Marya Kazoun, an artist born in Beirut and active between New York and Venice, works with installations and performances. For the Italian Pavilion, she presents Long Winter, an installation that reflects on the fragility of human existence through fragmented pieces of ice and glass, assembled to reconstruct a “frozen” cityscape—an evocative reminder of the precariousness of our presence on the planet. Alfredo Pirri creates works that bring painting, sculpture, and installation into dialogue with spac — be it exhibition space, public space, or sacred space. For the Pavilion, he presents an installation from his renowned series PASSI, consisting of a floor made of shattered mirrors; in this case, the work is titled Paradisi. The works of Marya Kazoun and Alfredo Pirri are made possible thanks to the support of Fondazione Berengo.
Anna Muskardin is an Italian visual artist whose work—ranging from sculpture and video to site-specific installations and photography—places the body, both her own and that of others, at the center of an exploration into multifaceted cultural and spiritual realities, delving into their most hidden aspects and existential implications. For the Italian Pavilion, the artist presents the iconic sculpture Portrait with the Emperor, which enters into a silent dialogue with the primary and symbolic essence of the exhibition’s theme.
The spaces of the Italian Pavilion are immersed in the sound project Acque Italiche by composer and interdisciplinary artist David Monacchi: a multi- channel eco-acoustic installation featuring water sounds recorded in lands shaped by human hands for millennia.
At the end of the journey, in the Giardino delle Vergini, stands the Arca di Ulisse: a vessel—understood as a device for collecting, preserving, and disseminating materials and data—that is “shipwrecked.” Just as the Homeric hero always returns from his journeys, everything that happens at sea leaves traces along the coast: the transportation of goods becomes, within the context of the Italian Pavilion, a metaphor for the systematic accumulation of data and artifacts through a series of cross- cutting categories. These are organized around eight “stops” inspired by Ulysses’ voyages, which structure the contents of the crates as material and immaterial traces of events, even those remote in space and time, collected along the Italian coasts. For the specific installation in the Giardino delle Vergini, the crates are repurposed from special disposable packaging and were recovered from a number of logistics companies, with the support of the nonprofit organization Linaria Rete. In this vision, it becomes important to consider the life of the structures beyond the duration of the Biennale Architettura 2025.
The Italian Pavilion, throughout the duration of the exhibition, is accompanied by a Public Program titled The Sea of Intelligence. Dialogues, consisting of numerous events—including seminars, conferences, workshops, and lab sessions—organized in venues significant to both Venetian and international culture. For the second consecutive year, the International Sculpture Park of Villa Fürstenberg in Mestre (VE) hosts the opening event of the Public Program. The Sea of Intelligence. Dialogues will open on Sunday, June 1, 2025, with the performance The Earth still Sings by artist Thomas De Falco, followed by the presentation of the sculptural work Draco Piscis by Agnes Questionmark.
The project Terrae Aquae. Italy and the Intelligence of the Sea is illustrated by a catalog published by Electa, which contains reflections from experts in the field, contributions selected through the Call for Visions and Projects, photographic essays, artistic incursions, research outcomes, and other cultural and project-related insights. Divided into three volumes and accompanied by special inserts, the catalog is conceived as a navigational chart, designed to guide the reader in discovering the collective design experiences, themes, and outcomes of discussions and debates.
The Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity, part of the Department for Cultural Activities of the Ministry of Culture, contributes to the realization of the Italian Pavilion with a sum of 800,000 euros, formalized, as usual, through an agreement with the Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia.
The Italian Pavilion at the Biennale Architettura 2025 is also made possible thanks to the support of sponsors Banca Ifis, OICE - Association of Engineering, Architecture, and Technical-Economic Consulting Organizations, Fondazione Berengo, and technical sponsors Layher and VIBIA. Special thanks are extended to the official suppliers Arctic Paper Italia and Tenute Navarra.
