Isola and Norzi follow in Cousteau's footsteps

The Italian duo's thoughts on water and the passing perception of space in a project that has arrived in Venice from New York and will visit Turin in November.

You immediately declare the inspiration provided by Jacques Cousteau's experiments on life underwater in the 1960s – in the southern Shab Rumi plateau off Sudan – in the video that accompanies the "A Ballad of the Flooded Museum" exhibition in Palazzetto Tito. Cousteau's film Le Monde Sans Soleil records precisely that experience. How did you take the force of that experience into your aquatic designs?
That Cousteau project fascinated me both for the underwater architecture he built (three constructions of which only one was left, completely covered with seaweed and sediment after 45 years in the abyss) and for the implicit living experiment. Five people lived there underwater for a month. As well as pursuing scientific ends, they wanted to show that humans could live underwater. In this project we have tried to express aquatic concepts conducted with the same spirit and we approached the New York aquarium, which was used as both studio and medium because it, in turn, became a source of inspiration. We realised that underwater architecture and modern aquarium are one the opposite of the other because Cousteau was actually underwater collecting flora and fauna that would fill the spaces of the oceanographic museum in Monaco, and because technical issues relating to sedimentation and the growth of seaweed between the dry and wet filter are the same: a wall separates water environments from air ones. The whole exhibition was based on the idea of the aquarium as a diorama.

A scale setting of a small world with its own life, a concept linked to that of the museum referred to in the exhibition title.
At first, we wanted to install an underwater exhibition in the Coney Island aquarium and keep it open for a couple of months but we had to cope with problems linked to the growth of seaweed and maintenance. So, we installed the works, filmed the operations as a record and then dismantled everything. The exhibition is a collection of photographs and videos illustrating underwater performances, such as trying to block a bubble underwater, evoking Cousteau's action of taking life underwater with his buildings. In another project, we asked the New York aquarium not to clean a specific portion of glass, chosen by us and marked with a rectangle. This created a painting made of seaweed that gradually, over the duration of the exhibition, was deposited on the glass, creating a real work that is a visual filter. The funny thing is that everything behind the glass is fake, a setting made of epoxy resins pretending to be corals. What is removed is the only real thing there.

As well as this kind of work there are also transient works on display that complete your research into water.
We worked with different media. Three different aquatic habitats coexist in a single work composed of three tanks placed one inside the other. The outer one has salt water; the middle one contains fresh water; and the inner one is filled with distilled water. This evokes the theme of the water cycle and then, slightly mimicking minimal art, triggers an experiment in which the colour of the waters gradually differ, passing from greenish to bluish white and the neutral white of the central container. Similarly, in public aquariums there are abrupt passages from a tropical environment to an arctic one. Then, we produced some watercolours made on compressed sponges. As soon as you rest the paintbrush on it you get a reaction on the paper. Here, we used them to portray cultural wrecks: water molecules made with water, an architectural plan, almost a prototype of the aquatic Land Art we are trying to conjure up, which is the structure of Atlantis and other civilisations. In our work with Enrico Ascoli, a sound artist we had worked with before, we lowered a hydrophone from the window of the Foundation directly into the canal to capture sounds and show the other side of Venice, the submerged one. The sound landscape it brings to the surface even surprised us with its wealth and variety. The way water transmits sounds means you can hear very distant noises.

Your work develops a close relationship with architecture.
We both have an architectural background. I studied architecture and Hilario, who studied museology and the history of art, is the son and brother of architects, who were also my professors. Our cultural interest is centred on the architecture and concept of the museum.

It is no chance that this exhibition opened in conjunction with the Architecture Biennale.
It is no chance that the Biennale presents numerous links with art. Paola Nicolin, who curated our exhibition, believed that it would interest an audience of architects because it is the fruit of transversal research, which will also be collected and developed in a book to be published in November and presented at Artissimain Turin.

When did your interest in water and the underwater world first originate?
Our first journey together was exploring the Cousteau wreck in 1995. The title we chose for the exhibition also stems from our private universe. It refers to Hugo Pratt's Ballad of the Salt Sea, a work that fascinated us when we were young and encouraged us to travel. Having come to Venice, we wanted to pay homage to Pratt who made Venice his home.
<i>Relic</i>,
watercolour on compressed sponge, 2010 (courtesy of the artists).
Relic, watercolour on compressed sponge, 2010 (courtesy of the artists).
<i>Anemone mirabilis</i>, frame from the video 
(courtesy the artists).
Anemone mirabilis, frame from the video (courtesy the artists).
made of air, aquarium of Coney Island, New York, 2010 (courtesy of the artists).
made of air, aquarium of Coney Island, New York, 2010 (courtesy of the artists).
<i>Grande Vetro</i>,
view of the installationa at the aquarium of Coney  Island, New York, 2010 (courtesy of the artists).
Grande Vetro, view of the installationa at the aquarium of Coney Island, New York, 2010 (courtesy of the artists).
<i>Relics (tripod)</i>,
watercolour made of compressed sponges, 2010 (courtesy of the artists).
Relics (tripod), watercolour made of compressed sponges, 2010 (courtesy of the artists).
<i>{acqua salata [acqua dolce (acqua distillata) acqua dolce] acqua salata}</i>,
mixed media, 2010 (courtesy of the artists).
{acqua salata [acqua dolce (acqua distillata) acqua dolce] acqua salata}, mixed media, 2010 (courtesy of the artists).

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