Exhibition

SEAWORLD VENICE, 2026 © Nicole Marianna Wytyczak
“Water, levels rising; water, which we drink and excrete in countless cycles every day; water, a vital, life-sustaining natural resource and highly managed commodity; water, to plunge in, dive in, and emerge from, perhaps transformed.”
In spring 2027, Gropius Bau will present Florentina Holzinger’s interdisciplinary project SEAWORLD VENICE (working title), first realised for the Austrian Pavilion at the 61st La Biennale di Venezia in 2026, in an adapted version. Drawing on her research into the element of water, Holzinger explores the human body within a radically changing landscape, in which nature and technology collide.
Florentina Holzinger’s work moves between performance, opera and theatre, critically engaging with the traditions of each. She experiments with endurance and the extreme, making power relations visible at the level of the body. Her works have been awarded the Nestroy Theatre Prize and the Deutsche Theaterpreis DER FAUST. In addition to her stage productions, Holzinger creates Études, an ongoing series of site-specific, one-off performances in public space that have been presented in collaboration with the Schinkel Pavillon Berlin, Bergen Kunsthall, Berlin Atonal and the Vienna Festival, among others. Since 2021, she has been an associate artist at the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin.
After its first stop at Gropius Bau, the project will be presented at Kunsthalle Wien and at Amant in New York.
Curated by Nora-Swantje Almes, Curator Live Programme and Outreach, Gropius Bau