Artistic PhD on Sail
Venice and its lagoon is one of the most vulnerable locales in the world, perpetually on the edge of the fixed and the fluid, fresh and salt water, mass tourism and abandonment, and day and night. Laboratorio Laguna is an academy of PhD on Sail, which employs Venice as a site for artistic research. Working as a collective of artists, we navigate critical zones in small sailboats and expose ourselves to the changing streams of wind and water. By synchronizing our bodies spatially, temporally, and intellectually, we question balance - literally.
Laboratorio Laguna brings together twelve international PhD candidates from their partner art universities – the Zurich University of the Arts, University of Art and Design Linz, and the Berlin University of the Arts. During an annual academy of three weeks, the PhD candidates inhabit the Bohemian Pavilion, a former warehouse, where they and the boats are harbored. Through the pavilion water door, we not only connect to the rios and canals, but also to the far reaches of both the Northern and Southern lagoon. While on the water, we float with fish and mosquitoes and cohabitate with spiders, moss, and algae. And by getting lost in the quiet waterways, we witness the histories inscribed along the lagoon’s surface and abandoned islands. Through this partnership with the wind and tides, we also learn to encounter ourselves.
https://laboratoriolaguna.net/
For further information read the 15th issue of the Wind Tunnel Bulletin, 2024, dedicated to the academy: https://windtunnelbulletin.zhdk.ch