LAGUNA INAUDITA
Sound Foraging Workshop + Sonic Performance
Nature Speaks Program
TBA 21 , Ocean Space
April - October 2026
Sound Foraging Workshop / Barenare Ecologie Sonore
SOUND FORAGING WORKSHOP
Barenare Ecologie Sonore
The workshop is an exploration of the invisible soundscape of the Venice Lagoon, understood as a complex and living ecosystem, traversed by amphibian and underwater ecological relationships that elude us humans. Sound is intended as a tool and medium for exploring the lagoon's unheard orchestra: through field recordings, deep listening, and the contribution of the ecoacoustic scientist Marta Picciulin, the workshop will culminate with the creation of a collective soundscape in the context of TBA 21 Nature Speaks Program and the Declaration of the Rights of the Venice Lagoon.
From the wingbeats and calls of migrating waterbirds to the soft churn of tidal flows through barene, from the whisper of reeds to the distant murmur of cormorants and crabs, every corner of the lagoon carries its own sonic story. Yet many of these voices are fading—dampened by rising noise, industrial pressure, water traffic, and the continuing loss of wetland habitats.
The aim of the workshop is to bring citizens (humans) of every age given the possibility to explore the lagoon in an unexpected way. By listening to it, to feel and hear (and so, to attune) to the lagoon as a complex living system, and successively to compose within the biodiversity orchestra.
Through guided deep listening and field recording in-situ, participants explored the fragile and beautiful intersections between humans and the more-than-human communities that sustain the lagoon. Together, we ATTUNE and compose, learning to hear the textures of tidal flats, salt marsh grasses, lagoon waters, nocturnal insects, and hidden estuarine ecologies anew—tuning our attention toward care, imagination, and sound ecology. The biodiversity that moves beneath human perception in these wetlands is almost infinite, if we are willing to listen closely enough to meet it.
Sound becomes an instrument of sensitive exploration of the fragile ecological processes that shape the lagoon, and a means to "compose with ecosystemic rights" within the unheard orchestra between human and more-than-human elements.
Nature Speaks Program / TBA 21 // Curated by Pietro Consolandi and Amalia Rossi (IDRA)
Bio: Marta Picciulin (Ecoacoustic Scientist) - // Researcher in bioacoustics and ecoacoustics, she develops non-invasive techniques to monitor aquatic ecosystems, focusing on species of conservation concern. Her work spans passive acoustic bio-monitoring, the distribution of sound-producing fish in Venetian coastal waters, and anthropogenic noise impacts on marine organisms. She participates in the Horizon project SATURN and the Interreg SOUNDSCAPE project, and serves on the advisory board of the Effects of Noise on Aquatic Life conference. Co-author of approximately 50 scientific works.
Laguna Inaudita / Sonic Lagoon (Riverberi Festival)Program | Saturday, October 10
- 4:30 - 7pm | Citizens' Assembly for the Rights of the Venice Lagoon | San Lorenzo Cloister
- 7 - 7:45 | Ocean Space becomes a Zoöp, but what is it? Talk with Chiara Famengo, Klaas Kuitenbrouwer and Markus Reymann | San Lorenzo Cloister
- 8 - 9:15pm | Sonic Lagoon, a series of performances | Ocean Space
Reitia: to dive under water for something, to disappear by Anne Bourne
Laguna Inaudita by Letizia Artioli
Veden Vire by Symbiotic Lab