mare/get wet!
SIT-PLU Residency 2026
“By using banality and proposing something as straightforward as ‘get wet’, we start with a disclaimer we all think we understand its meaning. get wet! will work from the future, creating wet micro-utopias and offering courageous visionary walks into the wet and watery universe.”
WOOPS (Work On Outrageous Public Spaces), Hannes Gröblacher, Lilli Lička, Mira Samonig
get wet! Is the selected project for the first SIT-PLU Residency, starting in January 2026.
Proposed by the art collective WOOPS (Work On Outrageous Public Spaces), Hannes Gröblacher, Lilli Lička and Mira Samonig, the project engages with the riverscapes of Bolzano through the materiality of water and foresees a series of public actions to explore diverse ways of approaching, interpreting and inhabiting the riverscape as a microcosm of the planet.
get wet! will develop up to participatory, collaborative and performative activities in public spaces in Bolzano, each based on the exploration of a specific property of water. Each action is configured by matching an aspect of water with a distinct group and their engagement with it, allowing water to act as a fluid bridge for exchange.
The core material of the river is the water. The quantity, mineral composition, colour, temperature and hydrobiological status and other living and mineral components — from particles to alluvial wood, debris and boulders — shape and constitute the water. While water is often a spectre of the imagination – a reservoir of promises and a container for projections – focusing on its materiality brings other qualities to the fore: physical tangibility, multiformity and fluidity. The physical collective experience is fundamental as a basis upon which discussions are triggered and comparative knowledge is gained.
How wet do we get, how wet is wet, what do we get from getting wet? How long do our wet traces of the river last in the town square, how can we create new imaginaries with pouring images?
Based on these initial reflections on the materiality of water, the practitioners in residency begin their exploration aodpting a method characterised by actively employing humour, absurdity and irony as well as banality. These sentiments run through their shared practice and are used to cultivate a low-threshold atmosphere to get people involved, to encourage a climate of surprise as a moment of stepping out of routines and to actively work for instead of against something.
— WOOPS (Work On Outrageous Public Spaces), Hannes Gröblacher, Lilli Lička, Mira Samonig
The project team for get wet! consists of Hannes Gröblacher, Lilli Lička and Mira Samonig, the heads of the WESTBAHNPARK.LIVE initiative, a civil engagement endeavour aimed at improving urban public spaces in relation to climate change, green space justice, urban development and the non-human perspective. This interdisciplinary trio has collaborated on several performative actions in public spaces. Each of them has their own practice and background, and they all teach, research, publish and collaborate in varied teams. Together they gave presentations, talks and lectures and reflected on their artistic practice.
Hannes Gröblacher and Lilli Lička are founding members of BLA. (Büro für lustige Angelegenheiten – Office of Droll Concerns), where they developed and carried out performative actions in public spaces since 2012. The aim of BLA was to address topics where societal conditions manifest in public spaces, such as borders, the distribution of spaces, and rules and regulations.
Year
2026 – ongoing
