Lecture by Léa Perraudin (in English) as part of the event “Built with Water” organized by Sabine Hansmann and Friederike Schäfer.

 

What allows one to float? In this talk, Léa Perraudin will engage the physical phenomenon of surface tension to delve into socio-material relations that emerge in the Venetian lagoon. As a city that thinks every aspect of itself through the water, the liquid grounds of Venice hold potential for frictional and careful encounters alike. How to move through a space that has agreed on precarious modes of supply and disposal, of spatial scarcity and temporal submergence? Venice has challenged its inhabitants and visitors to act and to sense otherwise while undeniably and irreversibly turning itself into everything that comes and goes with being one of the top destinations of globalized tourism. Who lives here, who walks here, who dares to swim, who needs to be carried? During this evening, we will be holding space to collaboratively explore the notion of surface tension through the waters of Hamburg and in the likelihood of spillage.

 

The event is a cooperation with HafenCity University Hamburg, the Department of Architecture, Space and Society (represented by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Sabine Hansmann, Weronika Yuan) and the Department of Landscape Architecture and Planning (Prof. Antje Stokman, Katarina Bajc, Sebastian Ballan, Jenny Ohlenschlager, Stefan Kreutz, Flavio Mancuso), as well as Dr. Friederike Schäfer (EXC 2020 „Temporal Communities. Doing Literature in the Global Perspective,“ FU Berlin).

The event is part of the supporting programme of the exhibition “Water Pressure: Designing for the Future”. The Freiraum and the event are free of charge.