The Austrian pavilion hosts SEA WORLD VENICE, a performance that keeps viewers’ eyes open and pushes them to experience ecological doom directly. The work uses intense physical staging, including a performer clapping inside a large bell and others suspended from harnesses on a slowly turning weathervane. The Belgian pavilion is transformed into an endurance spectacle that emphasizes strain, persistence, and the slow approach of breakdown. Both pavilions create immersive environments where collapse is controlled rather than chaotic, turning societal and environmental anxieties into compelling, sustained viewing experiences. The performances require attention over time and involve the audience in the unfolding tension.
"Florentina Holzinger took over the Austrian pavilion with SEA WORLD VENICE, and she wanted anything but for you to close your eyes and shift into lower frequencies - rather, she wants you to experience, with eyes wide open, the world in all its ecological doom. And she demands that you participate. Societal collapse has rarely been so enthralling."
"One woman is a clapper inside a huge bell, banging it on the hour with her torso. Other performers are suspended from harnesses like gravity-defying sculptures on an immense, slowly turning weathervane. In SEA WORLD VENICE, Holzinger floods the pavilion's severe modern architect..."
"In the midst of this upheaval, two national pavilions in the Giardini - the Austrian and the Belgian - slice straight through the outside rumbling with boldly experimental and imaginative performances that demanded sustained attention."
"The choreographer and performance artist Florentina Holzinger took over the Austrian pavilion with SEA WORLD VENICE, and she wanted anything but for you to close your eyes and shift into lower frequencies - rather, she wants you to experience, with eyes wide open, the world in all its ecological doom."
Read at Hyperallergic
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