SUPERFLEX
April 14, 2026 – August 2, 2026 | Palazzo Strozzi, Florence
There Are Other Fish In the Sea, 2026, installation view. Photo by Ela Bialkowska, OKNO Studio. Courtesy of Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, Florence.
Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi was built as an enclosed home but has now been reimagined as a public square and a site for art. Consisting of eight columns standing amid the palazzo’s existing columns, There Are Other Fish In The Sea puts interspecies architecture into dialogue with the harmonious proportions and colonnaded courtyard of the palazzo. The work expands the notion of the public to include other species, while offering human visitors an opportunity to pause and reflect on the possibilities for interspecies living and coexistence.
As sea levels continue to rise, human buildings will soon be underwater. Because ocean biodiversity thrives around structures with an abundance of surface area, the building blocks of There Are Other Fish In The Sea are designed to feature many flat and irregularly-sized planes. Stackable and modular, the blocks can be used to construct art for humans and infrastructure for sea creatures.
The resulting pink columns are of uneven height: some reach toward the sky, and others are lower to the ground. The columns emerge from a dark pool of water which reflects both the sculptures and the sky above—as well as any visitors who look into it. The water is a reminder of the closeness of the river Arno and its relationship to the city. The columns also resemble flood markers, pointing to the history of flooding in the area (such as the great flood of 1966, exactly 60 years ago) and proposes a new way of building infrastructure in preparation for future flooding.
There Are Other Fish In The Sea transforms Palazzo Strozzi into an encounter between past and future. The once-innovative aspects of Renaissance architecture are reimagined as part of a future renaissance for fish.
There Are Other Fish In The Sea is promoted and organised by Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi and Fondazione Hillary Merkus Recordati. In collaboration with Kunsthal Spritten, Aalborg, Denmark. Special Partner: Fondazione Henraux.
Designed in collaboration with KWY.studio.