Congolese choreographer Faustin Linyekula is staging "The Galeazze Project," a performance commissioned by the Venice-based nonprofit Scuola Piccola Zattere (SPZ) in the 16th-century Galeazze shipyard complex, which has been inaccessible since World War II and never open to the public. The performance, a collateral event of the 2026 Venice Biennale, brings up to 500 people into the 32,291-square-foot open-air ruin for two nights, featuring local students, musicians from the Venetian label Cosmogram, and trumpeter Heru Shabaka-Ra, with a soundtrack composed collaboratively.
The project matters because it represents a shift away from the Venice Biennale's traditional focus on individual art stars, instead proposing the artist as a facilitator and convener who shares authorship with local performers and practitioners. It also demonstrates a savvy urban strategy: the city partnered with the International Private Committees for the Safeguarding of Venice to use the rental fee from the performance to stabilize and restore the historic shipyard's floors, turning a cultural event into a vehicle for architectural preservation.