Le Môle et la Piazetta, inondation 

Curator: This delicate watercolor by Félix Ziem captures a flooded view of Venice’s Môle and Piazetta. Editor: My immediate impression is how fragile and ephemeral it feels, like a memory fading at the edges. The architecture is there, but softened, almost mirage-like. Curator: That sensation certainly echoes the realities of Venice: it is indeed a city constantly in dialogue with the precarious balance between preservation and decay, and with the overwhelming threats posed by climate change today. I read the inundation depicted here as an index of those deeper environmental anxieties. The flooding turns the lagoon into both a beautiful mirror reflecting the city, and a potent symbol of its vulnerability. Editor: I see the mirrored architecture, too, and the reflection of the winged lion of Saint Mark, which surmounts one of the pillars. Water, symbolically, is all about transformation, fluidity, purification. In this light, does the flooding not offer Venice—both the actual city and the idea of Venice—an opportunity for cultural and social renewal? The reflections of familiar symbols could mean that they take on new layers of meaning... Curator: An intriguing point. Certainly, these sites have been continuously repurposed for centuries. Venice, traditionally a powerful mercantile republic, today grapples with over-tourism. Thinking about the rising sea levels, how might Venice reinvent its function as a crucial space, understanding how its art and infrastructure might be marshaled to resist this slow violence? Perhaps artists can create imaginative mappings, offering new forms of collective stewardship in the face of ecological challenges. Editor: Absolutely! We can reinterpret this very image to help people understand that challenge. The bell tower looming over the Piazetta is a particularly strong symbol, often linked to civic pride. Now, here, partly obscured by light and the flood, is it meant to also recall how quickly even monumental icons can lose meaning? Or perhaps gain even stronger ones? Curator: That is something for all of us to continue contemplating as we enjoy this exquisite piece of Venetian painting. Editor: Indeed, art makes these connections powerfully, even if the questions themselves remain difficult to confront.