During the opening weekend of Biennale Arte 2026, Venezia FC and Golden Goose came together at HAUS in Marghera for a collaboration centered around the Club’s 25/26 Home Jersey. The project combined football culture, craftsmanship, and creative expression through a series of workshops, installations, and conversations open to the city and its creative community.

Through a customization workshop featuring patches designed by the Venezia FC creative team, the jersey became a surface for personal expression and exchange.

The patches created for the workshop emerged from the intersection of natural imagery and ultras culture, reinterpreted through a contemporary graphic language. Symbols from the lagoon, Venetian architectural details, and spontaneous references to the fan community came together in a series of designs inspired both by the territory and by the visual aesthetics of stickers and urban codes connected to the Unione.

More than a collaboration, the project reflected a shared sensibility between two realities rooted in the Venetian territory, where craftsmanship, football culture, and creativity naturally overlap.

Inside HAUS, the Venezia FC 25/26 Home Jersey entered into a wider dialogue between fashion, art, and community.

Venezia FC x Golden Goose | HAUS Biennale Arte 2026

Venezia FC is football on water. A Club shaped by a city unlike any other.

In Venice, water is not a backdrop – it is lifeblood. It is memory, movement, work, risk, rhythm, and survival. You don’t only learn how to walk here. You learn how to float, how to swim, how to dive. The tides shape the city, but it is the community that sustains it.

To introduce Venezia FC’s 25/26 Special Edition Fourth Jersey, Siamo nati sull’acqua, a photo series by Diogo Lopes, celebrates the profound relationship between the city and its waters – and the people who live them. The Shirt becomes a vessel: a surface that carries stories, identities, and conversations. Not only about football, but about belonging.

The series brings together voices from across Venice’s creative community – including design studio Zaven, Gallery Director Pia Sophie Ottes, artist Lorenzo Vitturi, Cristiana Collu Director of Fondazione Querini Stampalia, DJs 999999999 and music collective Metabolismo Lagunare, environmental activist Jane da Mosto, chef Silvia Rozas, Sibylle Righetti of Edipo Re, Francesco Vittorio Bassan of Katkoot Italia and others connected to the city’s creative landscape.

The lagoon emerges not as backdrop, “its sounds and colours have always been a source of inspiration” in “a relationship of fascination and identity” as said by Elena Callegari and Elia Favaro, part of Metabolismo Lagunare collective. And for 999999999, “the lagoon is magnetic – part of our imagination since the beginning.”

But the lagoon is also an invitation to slow down. As Cristiana Collu writes, it is “not sea and not yet land, an unstable threshold where forms hesitate and time slows down.” A living space that invites listening, mutual care, and shared growth – a reminder that fragility and impermanence can become a form of resistance.

“For me, the Venetian Lagoon is everything – or almost everything. It is the focus of my work, centred on the regeneration of the salt marshes. It represents my hopes not only for Venice, but for the fundamental and urgent reconciliation between us and nature.” said Jane da Mosto, founder of the NGO We Are Here Venice.

Through these voices, the lagoon reveals itself as both landscape and community: a space that shapes creative practices, everyday life, and a collective sense of belonging.

Siamo Nati sull’Acqua: A Collective Portrait of Venice

April - September 2025 | Venice and their lagoon

At the Sant’Elena water-bus stop, near the Penzo Stadium, one only needs to glance toward the lagoon to discover a submerged world: silent, yet full of life. From the seabed, thin, brown tentacles rise and sway in the water. They look like ears of wheat, but they are colonies of Sargasso, a seaweed that arrived in the lagoon in the 1980s.

Following the edge of Istrian stone, where the canal forms a landing step, a vivid green carpet opens up. It’s not grass: it’s Ulva, a native seaweed that inhabits these shallow waters throughout the year. It grows in silence, nourished by light, attuned to the rhythm of the tides.

In this space where land and water meet without truly dividing, even the lagoon’s floor becomes a garden. But if these are gardens—submerged, shifting, alive—then who tends them? How do we, whether residents or visitors, learn to care for this subtle and precarious ecology? What forms of kinship and stewardship might emerge between the unseen underwater soils and the visible, cultivated ones—so rare, so vital—in a city as amphibious as Venice?

From these questions arises the fourth edition of 

, a field research project by TBA21–Academy at Ocean Space, dedicated to the relations between food and ecology, and to their impact on aquatic bodies. Curated by Chiara Famengo in collaboration with Barena Bianca and TOCIA!, the project has been made possible thanks to the support of Venezia FC through the 

Between April and September 2025, the project turns its attention to the making of lagoon gardens: living assemblages where submerged worlds interlace with the human gestures of cultivating, cooking, and dwelling in Venice, both past and present. These gardens are not metaphors, but zones of care, reciprocity, and cohabitation.

The heart of the project takes shape within ancient

—large wooden caissons still used today for the breeding of 

, the small crabs that embody the traditions of Venetian aquaculture. Within these containers, mobile gardens will be cultivated, nourished by a marine compost: a living matter composed of algae, shells, sediment, and soil. This material will be assembled through three collective public interventions—gestures of gathering that interweave participatory practices, situated knowledge, and the ecological memory of the lagoon.

In April, accompanied by marine biologist Bruno La Rocca, the collection of algae began. Along the walk, each species encountered was observed, named, and told—an act of recognition and restitution, offering visibility and narrative to these submerged beings, so often silenced or ignored. Through this naming, they are reintroduced into the realm of shared attention and imagination.

 offered a chance to meet with fisherman Devy Chinazzi and explore his submerged clam gardens. Among inherited techniques and looming ecological uncertainties, shells and stories were collected—living archives of the lagoon’s entangled lifeforms and the precarious symbiosis that sustains them.

In July, the final activation will take the form of a collective embroidery workshop led by Emi Bio Design. Seaweed, shells, and other elements of the lagoon will be interwoven to create the tablecloth of 

: a choral composition, a new ritual dedicated to the lagoon. Here, the

 will finally be activated, and the compost will begin to take shape—layer after layer, seaweed after clam.

, during these same months, a seaweed dryer will be constructed: a light, open structure inspired by fishermen’s nets stretched out to dry in the sun. The natural saltmarshes around Lazzaretto Nuovo, an island managed by the associations Ekos Club and Archeoclub di Venezia, will host the curing of algae such as 

 (sargassum), left to the wind and sun before being folded back into the compost as a gesture of renewal. Algae like sargassum thrive in the lagoon in part due to nutrient runoff from the mainland. Harvesting them and returning their matter to the soil is a way of closing the loop: offering back to the land what was taken from it, and allowing it to nourish life anew.

The programme will conclude in September with two important events.

From 6 to 20 September, the seaweed dryer will be on display at Lazzaretto Nuovo, home to the Ecomuseo dei Lazzaretti Veneziani. Guided tours, including access to the dryer, will be available by reservation. It’s an opportunity to get closer to the drying process and uncover the stories it holds.

 will be celebrated in campo with the seaweed festival at Ocean Space, where the lagoon gardens will be officially unveiled. During the day, traditional lagoon medicinal herbs—such as rosemary, laurel, and artemisia—will be planted in the compost. The festival will be a celebration, a gesture of restitution open to the entire Venetian community, a participatory and convivial occasion: between tastings inspired by the flavours of the lagoon and opportunities for exchange, the city will welcome the return of submerged worlds into its urban fabric.

At the close of the programme, the two sea gardens will be donated to organisations dedicated to their care and flourishing. One will be entrusted to the association VERAS (Vignole Energia Rinnovabile Agricoltura Sana), which will activate it as a site for educational encounters, especially with children. The other will remain in the care of the Laguna nel Bicchiere community, which will continue to cultivate the living interstice between water and land in the Sant’Elena neighbourhood.

: shifting landscapes is the fourth edition of TBA21–Academy’s field research program at Ocean Space, dedicated to food and ecology.
Curated by Chiara Famengo with Barena Bianca and TOCIA!
Supported by the Flow Together campaign of Venezia FC

Lagoon gardens for Venice: between emerged and submerged landscapes

As part of the Dutch Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, "SIDELINED: A Space to Rethink Togetherness" explores sport as an architectural and social system that regulates spaces, bodies, and behaviors. Approached through a queer lens, the project challenges conventional norms related to gender, identity, and collective dynamics, and reimagines how we come together in public spaces.

We spoke with social designer Gabriel Fontana and curator Amanda Pinatih (Design & Contemporary Art Curator at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam) about their shared research into sport as a tool for inclusion, and the process behind the participatory performance held at the Pier Luigi Penzo Stadium in Venice.



Venice by Venezia: How did your collaboration start, and how did it develop into the SIDELINED project?



Gabriel Fontana and Amanda Pinatih: Our collaboration began through a shared interest in exploring how design can create spaces for critical reflection and social transformation. Amanda, as a curator, is always seeking new ways of sharing knowledge – approaches that move beyond traditional exhibition formats. What was immediately compelling in Gabriel’s work was the way he uses sport and play as tools for embodied learning. Rather than conveying ideas solely through text or image, his work not only proposes a new lens through which to see the world, but also new ways to experience it.

From there, the dialogue between us grew organically. We saw the potential to combine Gabriel’s experimental sports games – designed to question the notions of identity, community, and belonging – with a curatorial framework that could amplify their impact. This led us to develop 

 as an experience-based exhibition: an immersive space where sport becomes a metaphor for the social field, and where visitors are not just spectators, but active participants in reimagining togetherness. The project developed through continuous exchange – between theory and practice, body and space, play and politics – ultimately transforming the Dutch Pavilion into a living laboratory for new modes of coexistence.



Gabriel, how did sport become central to your research on inclusivity and social cohesion? Was there a specific moment, experience, or insight that led you to see sport as an effective way to explore these themes?



Gabriel Fontana: As a queer kid, I often felt unwelcome in sports spaces. I was good at it, but those environments – often charged with hypermasculinity – never felt like places where I could truly belong. Physical education class was my first real encounter with a space, that based on my gender, prescribed exactly how to behave: how to move, how to interact, how to engage with others. It introduced me to a rigid, normative system that left little room for difference.

At home, my experience with sport was quite different. My father was a high school sports teacher, but also taught film history – an unusual and telling combination. He wasn’t the stereotypical sports guy: he never watched games or talked about them much. His way of being resisted categorization, and that quietly shaped how I learned to question expectations.

These early experiences sensitized me to how sport operates as a microcosm of society. I began to see it as a system of social reproduction – one that instills and reinforces norms, values, and hierarchies. Sport is never just about physical activity; it’s deeply cultural and political. What drives my work is exploring how these systems can be disrupted. How can sport be reimagined as a space for alternative ways of being, moving, and relating? For me, it’s about using play to envision different social possibilities.



For the performance, you chose the Pier Luigi Penzo stadium as the venue and involved the Women's team of Venezia FC. Amanda, from a curatorial perspective, in a city like Venice – characterized by 

, public squares traditionally used also as spaces for play – what led you to choose a stadium as the venue for this performance?

 are indeed beautiful, historically rich sites of play and community, but we were drawn to the stadium for its symbolic and spatial intensity. The Stadio Pier Luigi Penzo allowed us to engage directly with the architectural typology that most powerfully embodies the regulatory force of sport. It’s a space where bodies, emotions, and behaviors are collectively choreographed – and at times, polarized.

Additionally, it was important for us to root the project in the specific locality of Venice. For our event at the Stadio Pier Luigi Penzo, we sought to bring together a diverse group of individuals from across the city, offering locals the opportunity to participate in this alternative form of team sport. The response to our open call was overwhelmingly enthusiastic. Participants of all backgrounds – women from the local sewing collective Agris Arte, LGBTQ+ sports enthusiasts, players from the professional team Venezia FC Femminile, students from Università Iuav di Venezia, and members of the Associazione Sportiva Sant’Elena – came together to play.

The presence of the women’s team from Venezia FC was especially meaningful to us. They represent an evolving narrative around gender and representation in sport. Hosting them in the stadium allowed us to create a space where the local context of Venice could meet broader global conversations about inclusion, visibility, and transformation in athletic culture. It wasn’t about erasing the history of the stadium, but about opening it up to new possibilities – reclaiming it as a site of reimagined belonging.



What dynamics emerge from these performances? Have you noticed any recurring patterns or phenomena in how participants interact and occupy space?



Gabriel Fontana and Amanda Pinatih: Absolutely. When we strip away familiar codes – like opposing team colors or static roles – participants often enter a state of disorientation at first. But that quickly transforms into curiosity, playfulness, and vulnerability. People begin to move differently, to relate differently. They look for new forms of alignment, sometimes through intuition, sometimes through empathy. One recurring pattern is a shift from competition to collaboration – not because we force it, but because the system no longer rewards winning as a singular goal. Another is the way people start to listen to each other more attentively, using subtle cues to navigate the game. These performances reveal how deeply we’re conditioned by the systems we inhabit – and how liberating it can be to step outside of them. What emerges is not chaos, but a different kind of order – one based on mutual understanding rather than hierarchy.



Based on this research, what role can sport play in fostering inclusivity and social cohesion, and how can architecture either facilitate or hinder these processes?



Gabriel Fontana and Amanda Pinatih: Sport has an extraordinary potential to bring people together–but only if we interrogate the structures that define it. As it stands, mainstream sport often reinforces social binaries: men vs. women, winners vs. losers, us vs. them. But when we redesign the rules, the games, even the spaces in which sport takes place, we begin to unlock sport’s capacity as a tool for empathy, solidarity, and mutual recognition.

Architecture plays a parallel role. It can either promote connection or enforce separation, depending on the values and intentions embedded in its design. In SIDELINED, the Dutch Pavilion becomes such a space. By queering the sports bar, we reframe architecture not as a neutral backdrop, but as an active participant in shaping social dynamics. Together, sport and architecture can be reimagined as shared tools of social invention –systems through which we not only play, but also learn how to live together differently.


The Dutch Pavilion is open to visitors until 23 November 2025 at Giardini – more info at 

Venezia FC

Venezia FC x Golden Goose | HAUS Biennale Arte 2026

Siamo Nati sull’Acqua: A Collective Portrait of Venice

Lagoon gardens for Venice: between emerged and submerged landscapes

Sidelined: A Space to Rethink Togetherness, the Dutch Pavilion at Biennale Architettura 2025