Bird’s-Eye Views of the Venetian Lagoon (BEVVL)
Planetary Visions and Birdscapes of an Aquatic Ecosystem

As an artistic genre and a drawing technique, the bird’s-eye view is the representation of an urban scene seen from above through an oblique perspective.
In Western art, the earliest example of a naturalistic bird’s-eye view is Jacopo de’ Barbari woodcut of Venice (1500), which celebrated the Serenissima as Europe’s premier trading and maritime power.

Nowadays, the bird’s-eye view has turned into a vertical gaze that produces colourful “nadir images” taken perpendicular to the Earth’s surface and appreciated for their scientific measurability. Starting from the 20th century, the conquest of the air – from the first flight experiences to contemporary satellites – has triggered a “spatial revolution” that transformed the relationship between humans and the environment at all levels.

Aerial recordings and satellite images of the Earth have become indispensable for an increasing variety of fields: urban planning, web mapping services, geoscience, environmental monitoring, etc. Considering satellites as witnesses of climate change and tools for creating emphatic connections with our planet is a line of research that has emerged in the last decades. Still, it is rooted in early photographs from outer space, such as the Earthrise (1968) and the Blue Marble (1972), which have raised new questions regarding global environmental consciousness. Planetary vision destabilises and decentres the human, proposing a holistic view of the world in which the concept of the human landscape is expanded to the idea of an ecosystem.

However, the peculiarity of aerial and outer space views has been realised within the military context of the two World Wars and the Cold War, which have also embroiled “the view from above” with the idea of a cold, detached, and hunting gaze. Postcolonial and eco-feminist studies have criticised the use of NASA Apollo mission’s photographs (whole-Earth images) for symbolising the emergence of the “global environment” and the Anthropocene, claiming that the Blue Planet’s cyberoptimism still hides the imperialist ideology of the space race. On the one hand, the constant monitoring of the Earth from space serves to understand and mitigate the effects of climate change scientifically. On the other hand, the cosmic vista has been blamed for publicly conveying a disembodied perspective, which sublimates technology without investigating the responsibilities of environmental degradation while hiding human and animal suffering.

Reflecting on this debate, the project “Bird’s-Eye Views of the Venetian Lagoon. Planetary Visions and Birdscapes of an Aquatic Ecosystem” overturns the anthropocentric point of view and encourages us to explore the birdscape of the Venetian Lagoon by embarking on ecological exercises that will help us to “see” like a bird of the lagoon. Located between land and sea, the Venetian Lagoon supports countless varieties of plant and wildlife species.

Being the largest wetland in Italy, the Lagoon of Venice is a protected habitat mentioned in the European Union’s Habitats Directive as a “priority for conservation” site (part of the Natura 2000 network of nature protection areas and LIFE program) and an “action site” of the EU Horizon 2020 Green Deal project WaterLANDS. Moreover, the Venetian Lagoon is considered a wildlife sanctuary by the Ramsar Convention for wetlands because it is a crucial site for numerous species of coastal wintering, migrant, and breeding waterbird species. Serving as a habitat for an abundant and protected avifauna, the Venetian Lagoon is the perfect place for cultural research on the Bird’s-Eye View. By studying the presence and absence of bird species that inhabit the lagoon over time (including hunted birds and invasive alien groups) as well as human-animal relations in the urban context, this project traces threats to and potentialities of the lagoon landscape while helping us grasp animal features essential for our survival in the Anthropocene.

The second part of the project studies the work of ornithologists, birdwatchers, wildlife photographers, naturalists, experts in bioacoustics, and educators in connection with the Natural History Museum of Venice. This section also includes an analysis of artistic interventions in the public space and citizen science activities concerning the avifauna.