Florentina Holzinger with Steven Pollock In Conversation / Venice 2026
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Steven Pollock: Returning to SEAWORLD, its viral success has created all sorts of reactions, but without much information, there is a risk of it being reduced to a meme. What should people understand about SEAWORLD?
Florentina Holzinger: Obviously the focal point is the piss tank and what it means, amongst other things, because that’s also the power of the work, the plurality of interpretations—that is, that inside of this deep tank is actually somebody who is in a constant practice of living in the wastewater of other people.
Pollock: Is there more than one person doing it?
Holzinger: We are in rotation, between five and eight hours daily, which is a living situation—living in the piss of the people who visit. What does it mean? It’s about somebody existing not only in the waste of others, but also in the footprint of the masses visiting Venice. Of course, the curators point towards the ecological aspects, but it’s also simply the reality.
It is about this residue—the waste of the past, mixing with the waste of the present. For example, the jet ski, which, as an object—at least on Instagram, or whatever—a white-trash, Jackass thing, somehow. Still, for me, it’s a fucking complex image that points to a lot of things. It is this strong symbol, an intrusion and symbol of exploitation, of nature. Jet skis are forbidden in most of Italy, and in Venice.
Pollock: Who is so crazy to ride a jet ski in the Austrian Pavilion?
Holzinger: Yeah, what a bad idea. A bad idea. That was also part of the feeling of entering the context of the Biennale: there is a lot of baggage to contend with—national representation, the sense of art as competition, and many old-school structures for which, as an artist, you are somehow held responsible. So yes, it is literally a piss-take, and we wanted to undermine that framework in some way. We even considered putting the pavilion on a boat, submerging it, and bringing people into the underwater pavilion and the lagoon.
