Organized on the occasion of the World Ocean Day, the United Nations Conference on the Oceans & Biennale des Arts et de l’Océan 2025
A project within the European Commission’s S+T+ARTS4Water II initiative.
Can ports—once gateways of exchange—be reimagined as porous spaces of interspecies cohabitation? POROUS invites artists, scientists, technologists, and citizens to collectively explore this question through immersive experiences, discursive conversations, and creative experimentation.
The symposium and live program blend keynote talks, roundtables, sound performances, film screenings, and hands-on workshops with a curated installation of contemporary artworks responding to the urgent ecological and social transformations along European coastlines. At the heart of the program are site-sensitive, artist-led inquiries into the role of ports as potential habitats and critical infrastructures—questioning their increasing isolation, their hyper-technologized present, and their possible futures as shared public spaces for humans and more-than-humans alike.
Featuring works by Adelita Husni-Bey, Plastique Fantastique, Lara Tabet, Territorial Agency, Stijn Demeulenaere, Siobhán McDonald, Lauren Moffatt, Hypercomf, and Carlos Casas, the exhibition will unfold as a guided path through Villa Arson.
Rooted in the transdisciplinary framework of S+T+ARTS4Water II, POROUS brings together a European network of ports and water bodies—spanning from the Venice Lagoon to the Bay of Koper, the Ciotat port at the Calanques National Park, Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt delta to the Dublin coast, and beyond—each serving as a microcosm for pressing environmental challenges and emerging alliances across species and disciplines.
This second edition of S+T+ARTS4Water, titled Ports in Transformation, is made possible through a consortium of cultural and scientific partners including TBA21–Academy, WAAG, Gluon, PINA, and more. As a central actor in the project, we continue our commitment to oceanic research and advocacy through new residencies and collaborations in Ocean Space (Venice) and online via Ocean-Archive.org.
Organized by TBA21–Academy and Villa Arson with the support of the European Commission Initiative S+T+ARTS4Water II
Curator: María Montero Sierra
Press release from TBA21
Image: Territorial Agency: Anthropocene Territory Scheldt. 2025. Image courtesy of TBA21
