Water No Get Enemy
A Dialogue on Spirituality, Sustainability & Resilience at the 61st Venice Biennale

During the preview days of the 61st Venice Biennale, Arts & Globalization Platform presents “Water No Get Enemy,” a public dialogue exploring how water shapes our artistic, spiritual, and ecological realities. 

Held on a terrace in Giudecca overlooking the Venetian Lagoon, the event brings together international artists for a multidisciplinary conversation on one of today’s most urgent themes.

Featuring the artists Lisa Mara Batacchi (Italy/USA), Ọ́mọ̀ Ọba Adétòmíwá A. Gbadébò (Nigeria/USA), and Thierry Geoffroy/Colonel (France/Denmark), the dialogue is moderated by curator Rikke L. Jørgensen (Denmark). Following the talk, guests are invited to stay for drinks, performance, and poetry.

As part of a multi‑city satellite program aligned with the Pavilion of the Republic of Nauru’s exhibition “AIM Inundated, Imagining Life After Land,” the event contributes to a global conversation on climate vulnerability and changes, indigenous knowledge systems and rights, and the fragile poetics of water. It extends the Pavilion’s inquiry by fostering exchange, artistic production, and collective reflection during the Biennale period.

Inspired by the Fela Kuti song and the Yoruba proverb affirming water as an enduring force of life, the program reflects on water’s symbolic, political, and environmental significance—from ancient cosmologies to today’s climate crises.

Lisa Mara Batacchi (Florence, 1980) An Italian‑American visual artist, Batacchi works through long‑term, textile‑based research projects that function as slow, counter‑extractive epistemologies. Her practice draws on the imagery of sandstorms—understood as spiritual and inner upheavals—to explore erosion, disappearance, and life after irreversible transformation. 

Much of her work unfolds along the historical Silk Road and in regions of the Middle East, opening spaces of continuity and resonance across cultural and political divides.

Ọ́mọ̀ Ọba (Prince) Adétòmíwá A. Gbadébò (Abẹ́òkúta, Nigeria)
A Yorùbá artist, entrepreneur, and philanthropist based in Lagos and New York, Gbadébò is the Founder of ÒRÍIFÁÁ and the Prince Adetomiwa Gbadebo Cultural Foundation. 

Serving as a liaison to the Egba kingdom on cultural and museum affairs, he draws on Yorùbá spirituality, communal teachings, and musical lineages—from Hubert Ogunde to Fela Kuti—to create emotionally charged works. His practice engages themes of belonging, justice, nature, and sustainability.

Thierry Geoffroy (France, 1961) Known as Colonel, Geoffroy is a Danish‑French performance artist based in Copenhagen. Working across video, installation, and collaborative performance, he is best known for conceiving ART FORMATS, a series of artistic structures activated in more than 30 countries to expand global critical platforms in response to contemporary emergencies.

His formats—including Emergency Room, Critical Run, Slow Dance Debate, and Biennalist—challenge institutions and audiences to respond to urgent issues in real time.