Swamp Intelligence: Participatory Games for Wetland Diplomacy is part of the GENS Public Programme, 19th International Architecture Exhibition—La Biennale di Venezia, 2025. Presented on Saturday, November 8, 2025, 3–5 pm, by Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas and Raphaël Mathevet; programming: Terry T. Kang and Thomas Lee Harriett; prop design: Julia Varjund, Chengcheng Sheng, Elif Nur Gözaydın, Qu Weili, and Öykü Önder; flag design: NODE Berlin.
Swamp Intelligence is a playful, live role-playing event where you step into the wetlands and think with more than just the human mind. Together we co-create scenarios, test future outcomes, and dream up smarter strategies for adaptation and resource use—drawing on collective intelligence, hands-on modeling, and climate-savvy serious game design. With masks, wearable pieces, and totems crafted in collaboration with MA Visual Arts and Curatorial Studies students at NABA – Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti Milano, players embody a reed harvester, stock breeder, hunter, conservationist, or even the elusive bittern bird. Wetland Game is an invitation to negotiate, improvise, and see what sustainable life might look like when the whole ecosystem gets a voice.
Flag design/animation: NODE Berlin; Photo: Eglė Marija Želvytė © the authors
Supported by the Lithuanian Council for Culture; the Creative Interdisciplinary New European Bauhaus (NEB) Research Centre at Vilnius Academy of Arts; and NABA – Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti Milano
