Florentina Holzinger, a performance artist known for extreme feminist works involving nudity, bodily fluids, and physical endurance, is representing Austria at the 2026 Venice Biennale with a pavilion titled “Seaworld Venice.” Opening May 9, the installation transforms the Austrian Pavilion in the Giardini into an underwater theme park and a functioning sewage treatment plant, where audience urine collected from portable toilets is cleaned and recycled into the tanks. The work explores themes of the human body, ecology, and Venice’s own struggles with sinking infrastructure and mass tourism.
Holzinger’s pavilion is poised to be one of the most talked-about and provocative presentations at the Biennale, marking her transition from the theater world to a high-profile art-world slot. The piece challenges conventional boundaries of performance and audience participation, while addressing urgent environmental and urban issues specific to Venice. Its uncompromising physicality and conceptual ambition underscore ongoing debates about the limits of art, the role of the body, and the intersection of spectacle and sustainability in contemporary practice.