Benedetta Panisson

 NUA / Queer Sea Marriage

NUA / Queer Sea Marriage originates both as an ongoing collective performance with the sea and as a transcultural academic investigation into the ancient Venetian ritual of the Marriage of the Sea. Dressed in ermine and aboard the Bucintoro, a lavish vessel covered in gold, the Doge cast a gold ring into the sea while pronouncing the formula Desponsamus te, mare, in signum veri perpetuique dominii (“We wed thee, O Sea, as a sign of true and perpetual dominion”), subjecting the sea by taking her as his bride. The ritual, still performed today by the city’s highest authorities, historically conveyed patriarchy, opulence and dominion over a feminised sea, while at the same time testifying to the deep and enduring - also affective - interdependence between Venice and its marine environment.

NUA is a contemporary collective immersion, as intimate as it is collective, reduced to its bare minimum: bodies and sea. Rather than replacing or rejecting the historical ritual, NUA enters into dialogue with it, shifting the coordinates through which the relationship between Venice and the sea is enacted: interdependence instead of domination, inclusivity instead of hierarchical patriarchy, affect and pleasure instead of exploitation.
The word nua draws on the Venetian language, it means both “naked” and “they swim”, bringing together the exposed body and the collective act of contact with the sea in a single word.
NUA / Queer Sea Marriage rethinks the Marriage of the Sea by letting emerge the culture, intimacy and love of water that connect sea-linked communities in an era of global sea-level rise, taking shape in Venice through its community. NUA is an image of a crisis, but also of the pleasure and intimacy of the encounter between human bodies and the sea.

The performance emerged from Queer Sea Marriage, an academic research project initiated in 2024, where “queer” is understood as an inclusive and transversal methodology for rethinking historical rituals and imagining new forms of coexistence between human communities and the more-than-human aquatic world. First developed through conferences and public discussions, the research has developed an artistic practice rooted in Venice while opening a dialogue with other sea-linked cultures and coastal communities.

NUA unfolds through a collective sea performance, analogue photography, moving image and community engagement, with a long-term impact on intangible cultural heritage. An artist’s proof performance was realised at San Nicolò Beach, Lido of Venice, on 31 August 2025, bringing together around 20 participants. Its location, San Nicolò Beach, is highly symbolic: an affective bathing site for the local community; the threshold between sea and lagoon historically associated with the ancient ritual; and a site close to the monumental MOSE barrier protecting Venice from high tides. The artist’s proof served as a formal and aesthetic test while assessing the project’s impact on the local community, and generated the first body of visual material through which NUA entered into dialogue with local and international institutions, paving the way for its extended version - a collective immersion of approximately 100 participants - deeper local rooting and international dissemination.
Marianna Biadene is the co-curator of the performance and the project local coordinator. A special thanks to I Cotroneo Collection for the support.

The project has developed through exhibitions, performances and academic events, including the Italian Pavilion, Terrae Aquae, at the 19th Architecture Biennale, Venice (2025). In 2026, NUA was awarded the prestigious Italian Council (15th edition, Area 1), promoted by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture, supporting its further development between 2026 and 2028 through an international network of art institutions, universities and coastal communities.

Exhibitions | Workshops | Talks
2026, Winner, Italian Council 2026, Area 1, Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity, Italian Ministry of Culture.
2025, Padiglione Italia Terrae Aquae, curated by Guendalina Salimei, 19th Architecture Biennale: Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective, curated by Carlo Ratti, 2025, Venice.
2025, Queering the Ocean Program, Ocean Space, invited by Perla Performance Research, IUAV, Bruna Bonanno, Anja Dimitrijević, Venice.
2025, ESEH Conference 2025, 13th European Society for Environmental History Conference, Uppsala, Sweden.
2025, SIEF International Society for Ethnology and Folklore Congress, University of Aberdeen, Scotland.
2025, Aquamour Festival, curated by Sumus, “Hydrofeminism” talk and workshop with Marianna Biadene, co-curator and local project manager, and Kyoo Lee, philosopher.
2024, Transeuropa Festival, curated by European Alternatives, various location, Venice. Workshop curated by Rete Arcipelago, Marianna Biadene, Associazione Gamaka, Alessandra Marzini.
2024, Materiality at the Intersection of Ecologies and Religious Studies, conference organized by Giorgio Cini Foundation, Harvard University (Harvard Divinity School), NICHE, Ca' Foscari University of Venice, University College Dublin, Venice.

Technical Details
Ongoing collective performance, video installation, photographic series from negative, academic panels, workshops, community engagment building, papers and forthcoming publication.