Palazzo Strozzi is transformed into a sea
From April 14 to August 2, Superflex redesigns the courtyard into an underwater landscape that invites us to rethink our relationship with the environment
From April 14 to August 2, 2026, the Renaissance courtyard of Palazzo Strozzi opens up to a new and immersive experience with There Are Other Fish In The Sea, the new site-specific installation by the Danish art collective Superflex.
Promoted by the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi in collaboration with the Fondazione Hillary Merkus Recordati and curated by Arturo Galansino, the work engages with the historic space through a dialogue that is as evocative as it is unsettling, transforming the Renaissance architecture into a device for reflecting on the present.
Photo Ela Bialkowska, OKNO Studio. Courtesy Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, FirenzeThe installation invites viewers to look beyond the surface: the courtyard is symbolically transformed into an aquatic environment, suggesting a scenario in which the boundary between human space and natural habitat grows increasingly blurred. The title itself—There Are Other Fish In The Sea—becomes a metaphor for a plurality of perspectives and an invitation to rethink our position within global ecological balances: no longer distant observers, but potential cohabitants of a submerged world.
At the heart of the project lies the research developed by Superflex with All Is Water, an experiment conducted in Corsica in collaboration with scientists Anja Wegner and Alex Jordan. On that occasion, structures designed by the artists and submerged in water attracted entire populations of fish, transforming into gathering and breeding grounds. The new Florentine installation stems from this awareness: that art and design can speak a universal language, capable of transcending the boundaries of the human species and contributing to new ecological balances.
The project takes on an even more powerful meaning on the sixtieth anniversary of the 1966 Florence Flood, an event that left a deep mark on the city’s collective memory. The courtyard of Palazzo Strozzi thus becomes a symbolic place from which to rethink the relationship between humans and the environment: no longer domination, but connection. An invitation to recognize the vulnerability of our spaces and, at the same time, the possibility of imagining them—and reinventing them—with an eye toward the future.
