A Swag Adrift

A Performance on Water, Gesture, and the Politics of a Sinking City

Presented as part of ArtNight Venice, A Swag Adrift treats Venice as a living hydrological system under pressure from all manner of forces. The work mobilises a small group of carriers (performers) to enact a series of low-impact, repeatable gestures that measure, mark, and narrate the politics of water in the city. Rather than monumentalising the climate crisis or water politics, A Swag Adrift works laterally (almost rhizomatically) - through minor actions, informal measurements, object collection, and the circulation of images and language. Through the creation and distribution of postcards by performers at each site - part instruction, part proposition, part propaganda - the work also produces a dispersed public: one that is asked not to just observe this spectacle in Venice, but to consider their relationship to the city and its sacred and profane elements after the event. The swag operates as a mobile archive and staging device, accumulating traces across sites before being deposited at Palazzo Mora at night’s end as both residue and prompt for more work to be done.

A Swag Adrift

A Performance on Water, Gesture, and the Politics of a Sinking City

20.06.2026
18.00 — 19.00

  • Event Performance
  • Venue Marinaressa Gardens
  • Presence In-person

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