Lagoonal Capriccio
with Amina Chouairi
Venice is among the most represented urban landscapes in the history of photography. In recent decades, this vast production of images has also become inseparable from its role as an emblematic site of economic speculation. Such overexposure has turned Venice into a stereotyped image, obscuring the complexity of the lagoon system that sustains it and makes its existence possible—a system that, beyond the monumental imaginary, remains largely unknown.
At the same time, the Lagoon is undergoing a process of erosion and transformation that has profoundly altered its balance.The Casse di Colmata are part of this system: artificial surfaces made of mud and sediments, created for the industrial expansion of Porto Marghera and later abandoned in the 1970s, which over time have evolved into a hybrid ecosystem.
These images focus on their artificial embankments and on what has happened after more than sixty years of abandonment. As in a capriccio by Canaletto, real elements are recomposed to construct a paradoxical vision rather than a strictly documentary one. The images convey a double erosion: on the one hand, that generated by the excavation of the Canale dei Petroli; on the other, that produced by the wave motion caused by the constant passage of large ships. What emerges is an artificial system that gradually consumes itself, while life nevertheless finds ways to adapt.
In the spontaneous ghebi, tidal creeks, clam fishers move through the area, often at the edge of legality; just a few meters away, cruise ships pass and oil tankers dock to load and unload crude oil. Meanwhile, these areas are colonized by Baccharis, an invasive North American plant; nearby, amphibious and stilt houses and improvised moorings mark an intermittent human presence. Local residents frequent these artificial shores after work, within an everyday life that makes even what appears irreconcilable somehow habitable, alongside white Camargue grazing horses and one of the most important areas for the Mediterranean basin waterfowl.
In this context, shaped by spaces continuously renegotiated between stability and precariousness, a Lagoon emerges that does not coincide with its stereotyped image. What also emerges is the need for its community—not only human—to reclaim it, including through new forms of representation.
Venice is among the most represented urban landscapes in the history of photography. In recent decades, this vast production of images has also become inseparable from its role as an emblematic site of economic speculation. Such overexposure has turned Venice into a stereotyped image, obscuring the complexity of the lagoon system that sustains it and makes its existence possible—a system that, beyond the monumental imaginary, remains largely unknown.
At the same time, the Lagoon is undergoing a process of erosion and transformation that has profoundly altered its balance.The Casse di Colmata are part of this system: artificial surfaces made of mud and sediments, created for the industrial expansion of Porto Marghera and later abandoned in the 1970s, which over time have evolved into a hybrid ecosystem.
These images focus on their artificial embankments and on what has happened after more than sixty years of abandonment. As in a capriccio by Canaletto, real elements are recomposed to construct a paradoxical vision rather than a strictly documentary one. The images convey a double erosion: on the one hand, that generated by the excavation of the Canale dei Petroli; on the other, that produced by the wave motion caused by the constant passage of large ships. What emerges is an artificial system that gradually consumes itself, while life nevertheless finds ways to adapt.
In the spontaneous ghebi, tidal creeks, clam fishers move through the area, often at the edge of legality; just a few meters away, cruise ships pass and oil tankers dock to load and unload crude oil. Meanwhile, these areas are colonized by Baccharis, an invasive North American plant; nearby, amphibious and stilt houses and improvised moorings mark an intermittent human presence. Local residents frequent these artificial shores after work, within an everyday life that makes even what appears irreconcilable somehow habitable, alongside white Camargue grazing horses and one of the most important areas for the Mediterranean basin waterfowl.
In this context, shaped by spaces continuously renegotiated between stability and precariousness, a Lagoon emerges that does not coincide with its stereotyped image. What also emerges is the need for its community—not only human—to reclaim it, including through new forms of representation.
ORDER![]()
TALKS & SIGNINGS
bruno, Venice
Grand Palais, Paris Photo
TALKS & SIGNINGS
bruno, Venice
Grand Palais, Paris Photo
ORDER THE BOOK
Matteo de Mayda and Amina Chouairi
Lagoonal Capriccio
Editing by Stefania Rössl, Tommaso Parrillo
Design by Damiano Fraccaro/ Otium Studio
Text by Fabio Matano, Stefania Rössl, Samuele Vincenti, Amina Chouairi
24x30 cm
48+26 pages
Soft cover
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