GESTURES for Rising Waters (Selections from INVERNO)
Introduction
Welcome.
You are not a single coordinate;
you walk in two worlds.
Both worlds are in danger.
Part 1: Inverno Winter GESTURES
The sky is never
more distant than here,
up, window by window, unclasped
shutters, airing out the morning–
light, the essence of another
world beyond terracotta and canal-
vapored masquerades ripple beneath olive
arbors that canopy unknown streets
or frame the narrowness
of open apertures.
Event SCORE: Sojourn in Venice
I. Preparation
Find a place where the ground is sloped, the water reflective, and the architecture compresses you. Remove your skin.
II. The Walk
Walk the center spine of a street until the stones recognize you and tilt you to one side or another or another passerby does the same. With every step, imagine the stones pressing upward, trying to learn or remember your name.
III. The Labyrinth
Do not use a phone, map, or ball of twine. Navigate using only a compass of nerves, sinew, and impressions. When you reach a bridge over a canal, look into the water until you recognize a previous version of yourself.
IV. Humility
Look at the sky. Acknowledge that you have already occupied it to get here. Relinquish heights. Become smaller, for now. Be one with water.
V. Conclusion.
Remain skinless until the season ends.
Cuttlefish GESTURE
Disappear into a
cloud of ink.
Version 2.
Reappear.
Carnevale GESTURE
Mask.
Unmask.
Fog GESTURE
Leave a body-shaped
tunnel in your wake
as you walk through
morning.
Return, mourning, through
this same hollow.
Tetramorphic MEDITATION
First Quarter, Venice.
Note the winged lions, with their paws on open
or closed books.
Sit with your hand on an open book;
meditate on peace.
Sit with your hand on a closed book;
meditate on war.
DORMANCY
Wrap yourself inside
a resurrection.
Flood.
Mirage GESTURE
Stare at your reflection.
Ask yourself if the real
you is behind you or in
front of you.
Between yourselves, decide
which is which.
Switch places.
Passaggio GESTURE
Draft a blue/print of your
wanderings.
Where do your Medi/terranean
movements here become:
subterranean, aerial,
epipelagic?
Thermal SHADOW
Stand inside the shadow cast
by a museum.
Think of the art inside.
Wait for the sun
to move the shadow.
When you stand again in
sunlight, your own creativity
is ready for you.
Think of art everywhere surrounding you.
Version 2.
Stand in the shadow of a public
monument.
Ask the shadow to compose you.
When the sun moves the shadow away,
You are composed where the monument
no longer exists.
ACQUA ALTA
At high tide, take off
your boots, and fill them
with flood water.
Place them at the
foot of your bed
and nap.
Write down your dreams.
Equinox GESTURE
Close.
Move ideas across thresholds.
Open.
Green to Black GESTURE
Learn the names of
the algae, bacteria, and
microorganisms that grow
vertically along the watermark
of buildings and canals.
Think about tardigrades
living inside of them.
Go into a campo that
same night, and look up
at the stars.
Think about tardigrades
floating in space.
Rejuvenation SCORE
Study immortal jellyfish.
Study tardigrades.
Trace your ancestors
back to sponges.
Imagine your cells
regenerating.
San Marco SCORE
Take an umbrella,
a round face mirror,
and rain boots into San Marco,
at night, during high tide.
Find a puddle to stand in,
so that you and the
Piazzetta are reflected.
Open the umbrella, and
put the mirror over your
face, creating a third
reflection.
Balance there until the
portrait settles.
Hydration SCORE
Drink water each time
you become aware of
a negative thought.
Stop when you are: 1) hydrated, or
2) no longer have negative thoughts.
Continue as needed to maintain
conditions.
Fossil RUBBING
Go to Lido or an area with cars.
Find a petrol station or parking lot.
Place thin white paper over a tire tread.
Use charcoal to make a rubbing.
Write the date and current temperature.
Mail the rubbing to a local politician or
a CEO of a utility company.
Event SCORE: Soundings
I. Preparation
Gather others to join you in a walk.
II. The Walk
Begin at a single starting place and walk in separate directions for one hour.
III. The Labyrinth
As you meander, record every distinct sound that you hear along the way on your phone.
IV. Contact
Send each sound to a different person in the group and/or your wider contacts.
V. Conclusion
Make a poem out of any responses. Make another poem out of any silences.
Porto GESTURE
Part 1. Go to the Aeroporto Marco Polo.
Listen to the airplanes.
Listen to the announcements.
Go to the Venezia Santa Lucia
Listen to the trains.
Listen to the conversations.
Go to the Porto di Venezia.
Listen to the boats.
Listen to the lagoon.
Part 2. Go back to your flat.
Listen to your breathing.
Go back to your city.
Listen to the traffic.
Go back in time.
Listen to the voices.
How do you hear sounds in your memory?
Saline EXCHANGE
On Lido,
work up a sweat.
Go into the sea.
Stay until the water inside you
recognizes the water around you.
Air dry as you walk home.
Collect any salt from your body
and use it to cook with.
Version 2.
Run your fingers along
a brick wall anywhere in
Venice.
Collect any salt that falls
and use it to cook with.
Cobblestone PULSE
Find a weed in a street crack.
Place your middle finger on your own pulse.
Place your index finger on the stem of the plant.
Close your eyes.
Stay until you cannot tell which rhythm belongs to which body.
Clearing GESTURE
Visit Campielli.
Stand over the cisterns, the
vera da pozzo, at their centers.
In each, delete one obsolete
contact or photo from your phone.
Contemplate digital waste.
Ponder rainwater collection.
Scream MANIFESTO
I. ATTENTION IS RECIPROCITY.
The ear is meant to be a port of entry and departure and a tool for navigation. It re-maps the geography of our own presence through balancing acts—acknowledging, giving, and taking.
II. REJECT THE PERMANENT RECORD.
We do not need more archives taking up physical and digital space. We return the unused of our psyches to the primordial ooze, cast gold threads to the floor. We need more silences sent to the living and sounds received from the dead. The true archive is an exchange.
III. COLLAPSE THE DISTANCE.
The city is not a backdrop. It is the salt on your skin, the weed growing through the crack, and the rhythm of your own pulse. Whether you are aware or not, you are already in this exchange.
IV. EMBRACE THE SUBMERGED.
The city is porous. The water rises in the square and vanishes. Salt migrates through the brick. Rainwater is collected in cisterns. We recognize the tides by letting go of what no longer serves us, deleting unused contacts, duplicate photos, collecting instead pure water and pure memory.
V. EVERYONE IS A CONDUIT.
The score is an invitation to walk, breathe, collect, to compose, to touch the pulse of the living world. When you feel the pulse, you are the sounding.
VI. DO NOT WAIT FOR THE SILENCE.
There is no silence in a living world, only quiet. The world has alternately screamed and whispered for eons. The world is now screaming.
LISTEN, and act accordingly.
Tom Pearson
https://tompearsonnyc.com/inverno
© 2026, Tom Pearson