Al Fresco
Art Cinema

International video art selection in collaboration with Chioggia’s fishing community

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Bogiaisso in Chioggia dialect means 'vortex, the point where water bubbles up'.

Since 2022, during the fishing moratorium, Bogiaisso has been a moment to look in the mirror and discover ourselves reflected in sensibilities, lands and waters both near and far, thanks to a selection of video works in profound dialogue with local life experience.

Bogiaisso is also a journey of collective imagination lasting 12 months, where fishermen, artists, artisans and curators meet in bars and trattorias to interrogate art and use it to critically re-imagine the present.

All this is possible thanks to the support of a scientific committee composed of over 20 curators and art experts who every year strengthen the bonds between contemporary art and the lagoon.

bogiaisso@gmail.com
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Versione Italiana

Fourth Edition

25—28
August
2025

From
9 PM

Palazzo
Grassi
Courtyard

Chioggia (VE)

Free
Admission

Access from Riva Canal Vena.

Free seating available until capacity is reached.

Partners

In co-partecipation with:

Supported by:

How to get to Chioggia

From Padua:
Autobus Busitalia E005

Tickets available on BusItalia Veneto App or in tobacco shops

From Venezia:
Autobus 80 da Piazzale Roma
Autobus 85 da Areoporto Marco Polo

Tickets available on Arriva MyPay App or in tobacco shops

ACTV Linea 11 from Lido & Pellestrina | Timetable or CheBateo App | Tickets available at ACTV Offices

From Milan, Rome, Neaples etc:
we reccomend taking the train up to Padova

Parking:
Park Unione (Silos)
or where you see parking spots marked by blu stripes with the app Mooneygo

Where
to eat
& shop

Where
to rest

From 24/08 to 31/08 (checkout), on a first come, first served basis.

for Info & Bookings

16 euros per night, for stays of 4 nights & more
18 euros per nigght, for stays of 3 nights or less

Videos

2024

2023

2022

2024

MIRIAM SIMUN
Your urge to breathe is a lie (2021)

In her work, Miriam Simun conveys a message entrusted to her by an octopus during a close encounter. This shift in perspective, expressed in a wish—”I want to become a cephalopod”—sparks new ways of perceiving our bodies, unlocking abilities that have long been forgotten. The challenge, however, lies in repealing the head’s central authority and granting agency to the rest of the body, especially the skin and tentacles. Can we “see through the skin”? Can we learn and make decisions based on the sensations of our body, rather than relying solely on thoughts and language? How might our future change if, even for a brief moment, we could think like an octopus?

Selected by Orsola Vannocci Bonsi

COMMUNITY PERFORMANCE
How to become an octopus (2024)

For the opening evening of Bogiaisso 2024, the local community gathered around the work "Your desire to breathe is a lie" by Miriam Simun, translating it into ciosoto and interpreting it in a polyphonic performance where fishermen, artisans, islanders and students played the role of the 'tentacles' of an octopus, freed from centralized decision-making logic and enabled with individual and critical responsibility.

ELEANOR MORTIMER
Bubble (2020)

In Eleanor Mortimer’s video, set in an aquarium fish shop, we encounter the paradoxes of aesthetics, rarity, the relationship between value and price, and the development of affectionate relationships between different species— or across different ages. Some fish are only seen as valuable when part of a 10 kg batch, while others, even when alone, can be worth 100 euros each. This setting allows us to directly experience these contradictions, where aquariums become windows into the lives of people, viewed from multiple perspectives—especially those of the f ish themselves. These fish are pampered, admired, treated like friends, and carefully chosen by the shop’s customers. The shop itself is a small ecosystem within a larger environment: the city of London, particularly the East End, an area formerly dedicated to the harbour and docklands, which is irreversibly transformed—expensive, distorted, and no longer welcoming to the communities that once traditionally inhabited and defined it. The roles of observer and observed blend seamlessly, constantly shifting throughout the narrative.

Selected by Zoë De Luca Legge

Last winter Pugiotto showed me a black sole, a sole that was completely black — it wasn't black from oil or anything else, it was just naturally like that. Every now and then, rarely, you find one. For me, mentally, it has become a legendary figure, sometimes I think about the black sole. And it's partly the reason why we're presenting this video, suggested by Zoe. In Chioggia, depending on the places, the time of day and the relationships between people, fish takes on different values. While large quantities of fish, selected based on their weight and size, head toward the crates that are sold every night at the wholesale market; other fish, so to speak strange ones, non-standard, a bit crooked or dented, unusual, or judged not suitable for the aesthetic standards of customers, take another path. They go into small bags that grandfather fishermen pass to their children so they reach their grandchildren, or otherwise those bags every week become ways to express friendship, gratitude, alliance, familiarity between people. — Niccolò Moronato

ODE
When there is no sun (2024)

Ode’s “When There Is No Sun” delves into the deep alienation that comes from leaving behind one’s origins and the powerful, often painful, process of returning. Set against the backdrop of her hometown, Itajubá, Minas Gerais, the film portrays a journey from darkness to light, guided by ancestral spirits and memories. Afro-Brazilian deities like Exu Tranca Rua and the Pomba Giras play pivotal roles in her spiritual reconnection, offering protection and wisdom. Through symbolic encounters, Ode confronts the trauma of separation and the guilt imposed by religious dogma, shedding these layers as she reconnects with her past. The film visually and sonically weaves a narrative of transformation, illustrating the cyclical nature of life, death, and rebirth. By embracing her roots and spiritual heritage, Ode finds a renewed sense of self, ultimately revealing the profound connection between alienation and the search for divine love.

Selected by Cairo Clarke

Returning to one's place of origin after so much time spent so far away. Meeting one's ghost after a great transformation. Many young people leave Chioggia and have a difficult relationship with coming back. Now, many of them come to know us and become part of this family that is Bogiaisso. But the alienating effect of Ode's video also speaks to the fishermen, who live at sea for days or weeks, and are always zooming back—zooming in to reality.

Some of them tell me that in certain periods, it seemed to them like they were one of those time travelers who return home and find a completely foreign, alien, changed family. — Niccolò Moronato

NORA BZHETA
Underneath it all (2020)

A woman laying on the shore is progressively and implacably buried by seaweeds, yet she continues to caress the sand with her arm. An ancient Albanian legend of female sacrifice is reimagined through Nora Bzheta’s mysterious gesture, highlighting the themes of struggle, resignation, hope, natural elements, and the often unspoken heroic acts women have performed over centuries. Layer by layer, these acts have built the foundations of societies and the ways of life of coastal civilizations.

Selected by Cairo Clarke

In the Albanian legend of Rozava, the woman asks as her only condition for accepting to be walled up alive, that her right leg, her right arm, her right eye and her right breast be left free: she had just had a newborn and wanted to be able to make him smile with her gaze, nurse him with her breast, calm him with her hand and rock him with her foot.

Not far from Palazzo Grassi, at the gates of the Fish Market, there is another large stone object, in this case a portal that often goes unnoticed but is very beautiful. It was created in the 1940s by Sartori, a Paduan sculptor very fond of Chioggia, and is called the portal to Prisca, because it tells in stone the story of a girl, Prisca indeed, who died prematurely and for whom he imagines a life of sun, happiness, and learning within Chioggia's fishing society. It is a portal that I recommend everyone stop and look at a bit longer because it puts you in contact with a human dimension and a time that seem gone but are actually simply sunk into the background of our realities and still characterize everyday life.

Beautiful too is the dedication, "To Chioggia, proletarian and seafaring, an adoptive son dedicates." The character of Rozava, this woman trapped in stone who keeps her newborn alive, and the figure of Prisca, who died as a child but in stone finds her eternity and shares it with the community of Chioggia, are for me mentally and emotionally connected across the sea that separates the Lagoon from Albania, a place with which for many centuries there have been continuous contacts, up to the present day—in fact it is not rare for fishermen and shipowners from Chioggia to go have similar experiences with their colleagues in Albania. — Niccolò Moronato

SUZANNAH PETTIGREW
GEORGE JASPER STONE
IFSR (2019)

Imagine escaping the daily grind with a quick internet connection, immersing yourself in a world that’s tailormade for you, where every tension dissolves into pixels and codes. This is what IFSR (“I Feel So Relaxed”) explores: a realm where the posthuman body seeks refuge in virtual wellness experiences, retreating from the chaos of the real world into a simulated paradise of calm and tranquility. SP and GS guide us through a journey of virtual spa treatments, narrated by a soothing voice alongside immersive visuals and soundscapes. Every detail, from the color of the purifying stone to the backdrop of simulated pine trees swaying in the wind, is crafted to offer a total relaxation experience, blurring the lines between the real and the digital. The work reflects on the concept of wellness and its evolution, envisioning how we might embrace the need for rejuvenation in a world increasingly dominated by technology. As we immerse ourselves in this vision, we can’t help but ask: what will remain of those authentic moments lived in real places? What is real and what is not?

Selected by Cairo Clarke

The work "IFSR" by Suzannah Pettigrew offers us a glimpse of a possible future, a future where the need to relax and regenerate no longer finds space in familiar places, but in a simulated reality, a digital spa. In Chioggia, despite being an island, wellness and its practices are more often linked to sand than to water. Sand baths for example—a cultural factor, found in old 1950s photos of Sottomarina, and today very widespread among second-generation communities, especially from the Indian subcontinent, who you often see staying buried in sand for hours along the shoreline. Habits never truly disappear, they ferry from one generation or culture to another, continue to exist in other places and then return as trends decades later to where they started.

Is it possible to imagine a virtual experience of sand baths?
Remote tourism, who knows how that could work?
You book an hour of beach chair at Bagni Clodia and enjoy it from your couch in Philadelphia?
Is there a sauna in Chioggia? I've been looking for it for years and can't find it.
Is wellness experienced in public space (like saunas in Finland) or is it always a private luxury?

Chioggia's environment is often used in simple ways to feel better health-wise, throughout the year. Finally comes to mind the refrain that all people of a certain age tell you, that if you go to the beach early in the morning it's full of iodine: I've never really understood what I'm supposed to do with the iodine, but one believes it and goes there. — Niccolò Moronato.

KUMBIRAI MAKUMBE
Living doesn’t mean you are alive (2021)

Kumbirai Makumbe’s work explores the ongoing transition in society towards a new state of the body, no longer organic but composed of information, technology, and virtuality. The ability to discern the ambiguities of forms and existences, the capacity to feel pain, to learn through the body, or the instinct to seek the warmth of another body, are lost in a process of transformation from the physical to the digital. These sensations fragment and reassemble in different forms, under new guises. The narrating subject, who has just undergone this transformation, recounts the loss of these sensations and their subsequent pursuit. It is a visual journey to be experienced as the exploration of a sculpture, moving through rooms, thoughts, and reflections on the digital relationship not only with our own body but also with that of every living species around us.

Selected by Cairo Clarke

One of the instruments that immediately captured me aboard the Obbedisco is the Furuno. The process of translating fish into digital object, quantified, which transforms from prey to target, looks like a videogame. Everything seems more and more like a videogame. Even on the fishing boat, you never touch the water with your hands, never. Yet even though the fishing boat is the first instrument that transforms fish into "fish" and "fish" into quantity and commodity, as Cristiano says, "the fisherman is the last being to feel the heartbeat of a fish."

This contradiction between the coldness of the market and technology, the warmth of contact between species, and at the same time the attempt of machines to replicate the "naturalness" toward which we nonetheless tend, can be encountered in the world inhabited by the character who speaks in Kumbirai Makumbe's video, a character who has already migrated from physical life to digital life, who is himself but in another form, as if the school of fish that has just become a little square on the Furuno screen could speak to us and tell us something about itself. — Niccolò Moronato.

SEBA CALFUQUEO
Tray Tray Ko (2022)

What if we considered water as a vast, ever-changing, omnipresent living being? Water commands a deep, ancestral respect from humanity, tied to the natural cycles that sustain our existence on this planet. Yet, through exploitation, commodification, and the loss of ancient sensitivities, this relationship has become fractured—perhaps irreparably. Seba’s work offers a powerful and heartfelt tribute to water, an element deeply revered by the Mapuche, of which the artist is a part. His gesture captivates, reminding us of the importance of water not merely as an economic resource but as a living, sacred, and indispensable being. His performance moves through forests and rivers, carrying a universal message: water is a source of life and healing, a precious gift that must be protected. The blue fabric the artist drags through the landscape mimics the flow of water, caressing the forest as it connects everything, nourishing the Earth and all living beings.

Selected by Zoë De Luca Legge

SEBA CALFUQUEO
Kowkülen (2022)

If we could ask the water flowing near us to remember, what memories would it reveal? The artist’s body is submerged in the waters of his native region, wrapped in a blue rope that evokes veins running beneath the skin. Kowkülen is a poetic journey that speaks to all bodies of water and all bodies that dwell near them. Being water, feeling part of water as an integral part of one’s identity, stands in stark contrast to laws that define water as a commodity—specifically, Pinochet’s Water Code, which extends Chile’s dominion over Mapuche territories down to the rocks from which rivers spring. Seba Calfuqueo’s work transcends cultural and geographical boundaries to offer an active, embodied reflection, seeking a deep, instinctive, sensory, and personal relationship with water—one that allows for imagining new forms of non-destructive social progress.

Selected by Zoë De Luca Legge

BIARRITZZZ
Mandacura (2016)

Imagine an ancient hand, a hand that has traversed the centuries, shaping our lagoon, our sea, and our hearts. This hand, the “Mandacura,” is at the heart of Biarritzzz’s work—a video that invites us to reflect on the profound connection between humans and their environment, between care and control, protection and power. Biarritzzz’s “Mandacura” is like one of these hands, but with a wisdom that transcends the everyday; a hand that holds the power to heal and decide. It is the hand that, from above or from within the earth, intervenes to protect and guide. It could be the spirit of all those hands that, over the centuries, have molded our lagoon—an entity that knows every secret, every hidden corner of our land. “Mandacura” reminds us that the end is near, but so is a new beginning. It is an invitation to ponder what it truly means to care for, protect, and live in harmony with our environment.

In Chioggia, care is a daily gesture. It is the hand that cleans the freshly caught fish, that works tirelessly to ensure that everything is ready for the market. Once, along the shores, there were people dedicated to this work who with patience and mastery took care of the scallops and clams, ensuring that everything was perfect for the dish that would arrive on our tables.

It is work that is lost in our consciousness, but that still today resonates in the hands that every day take care of our sea. This mythological hand could easily live here, off our coasts. Always vigilant, always ready, it is that presence that sustains and nourishes us, just as the lagoon feeds our body and our spirit. In the end, it is a reflection of our very essence, a call to that care that binds us to our land and our sea. — Niccolò Moronato.

WILL FREDO
MILPA + X (2022)

What does it mean for us to cultivate the land? How do we perceive the connection between our daily work and the earth we live on? If the earth had a voice, what would it tell us today in this constantly evolving world? Will Fredo’s “Milpa + X” invites us to reflect on these questions through a lens that merges past and future, tradition and innovation. The Milpa, an ancient agricultural practice from Latin America, represents much more than a mere cultivation method; it embodies a way of life, demonstrating how diversity, solidarity, and respect for nature can form the foundation of a community. In a world where agricultural choices often prioritize efficiency and profit, overlooking the richness of traditional knowledge, “Milpa + X” reminds us that there are ways to live in harmony with the earth—ways that do not require pesticides or exploitation, but instead nurture life in all its forms. This work is not just a call to acknowledge difficulties but also an ode to resilience, to nature’s ability to regenerate and thrive, even from the ashes, like orchids growing in lava. The piece encourages us to consider how we, too, can cultivate a future that honors plurality and balance—a future where both land and people can grow together, free and flourishing, like flowers in a garden that endlessly renews itself.

Selected by Cairo Clarke

The treatment of semena (lit. seeding, but intended for mussels and clams), how it is treated/considered, how does one feel when one week you see a flourishing semena and the next week it's all dead? Why is it dead, is it the environment or is it people from outside who don't know? Can we imagine ways to communicate and share wisdom even to those who are from outside to avoid the disaster we are living in? — Niccolò Moronato.

LORENZO SANDOVAL
Aquel Verano del 22 (2022)

What if the lagoon were a person? What if it had a voice and could advocate for its own well-being? Lorenzo Sandoval's "Aquel Verano del 22", which will be the focus of the debate on August 28th, invites us to reimagine our relationship with nature through the lens of Spain's Mar Menor—a lagoon that recently acquired legal personhood.
This evocative film, currently in development, explores the critical ecological challenges faced by Europe's largest salted lagoon and its surrounding region. Through a rich tapestry of interviews with activists, scientists, musicians, and locals, Sandoval delves into the environmental crisis exacerbated by the hottest summer on record.
By tracing the legal and cultural responses to this crisis, the teaser poses a provocative question: could Venice's lagoon, too, benefit from such recognition? Could granting it personhood inspire new ways to protect and honor its shared natural spaces?

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Al Fresco Art Cinema

Versione Italiana

Fourth Edition

Videos

Al Fresco
Art Cinema