Shifting our gaze towards the less familiar, but no less important, Nowtilus embarks on a hunt for “Off-Piste Museums. Missing Fish, Hidden Treasures, and Lazzaretti”, where we hope the route will instead be willingly flipped upside-down.

We are often led to think that Venice is a museum in and of itself, but there are many lesser known museums that manage to evade even the most attentive connoisseurs of the city. Is it possible to escape from the currents that carry crowds of tourists around the most important cultural sites, and broaden our horizons and understanding of the smaller and often more less centrally-located collections, recognizing the valuable role they play in the history of the Venetian Lagoon? The answer is clearly: yes.

Chatting about unexpected collections in the historical center, we then move on to talk about two examples of museums in the lagoon that are truly out of the ordinary, and therefore exceptional. Coming aboard Nowtilus we have Lara Endrizzi, a marine biologist who tells us the story of the “Giuseppe Olivi” Museum of Adriatic Zoology in Chioggia, and Giorgia Fazzini, project manager of the Ecomuseo dei Lazzaretti Veneziani, and the many activities and open-air routes they offer. Both guests represent brilliant examples of collective thought and action in favor of a new way of creating museum spaces with the lagoon.

The episode is available on Ocean-Archive.org and on TBA21–Academy Radio on SoundCloud, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.

“Nowtilus. Stories from an urban lagoon in the 21st century” is a podcast produced by Ocean Space, Venice, for TBA21–Academy Radio. Music by Enrico Coniglio.

Each episode of the second season of Nowtilus. Stories from an urban lagoon in the 21st century! is accompanied by Nowtilus Plus, a document with a bibliography, related images, and an in-depth analysis of the content discussed by the guests aboard.

Check out the material from the fourth episode:

Lara Endrizzi graduated in Marine Biology at the University of Padua, and since 2020 she has coordinated the activities of the Giuseppe Olivi Museum of Adriatic Zoology in Chioggia. Her personal research is focused on the relationship between humanity and the sea from different points of view. In Syracus from 2019 to 2020 she studied the relationship between protected marine areas and artisanal fishermen, and followed the environmental education proposals for the schools of the Plemmirio Marine Protected Area. Since 2020 she has been a member of the ECO-SMART team, a research project to combat the effects of climate change in the wetlands of the lagoon, made possible thanks to the contribution of local stakeholders. At the Olivi Endrizzi Museum she is responsible for the management and conservation of the collection, as well as for all the events that the museum organizes each year for both adults and children.

Giorgia Fazzini was born in Venice in 1980. She is a geographer by training, and deals with strategy, management, and communications for territorial projects. The Ecomuseo dei Lazzaretti Veneziani is promoted by the Ekos Club and Archeoclub d'Italia association Venice: it represents the rebirth of the Lazzaretto Nuovo, the only Venetian island brought back from abandonment through a participatory non-profit regeneration project, and the reevaluation of various material and immaterial assets in the Venetian Lagoon.