Fishy Business: Hydromorphologies and Wetware

AGNES QUESTIONMARK, ANDREIA SANTANA, CHRISTINA GRUBER, DAVIDE BEVILACQUA, ELENA ROCABERT, JUAN PABLO PACHECO AND NIKOLAUS ECKHARD

CURATED BY: CARMEN LAEL HINES AND LISA JAEGER

EXHIBITION 15 APRIL – 10 MAY 2026
OPENING 14 APRIL, 2–9 PM

“There is an aesthetic piece, but the main concern is fish health,” explains Dr Lesanna Lahner regarding the prosthetic implementation of a glass eye for Rocky the Rockfish at the Vancouver Aquarium. Fishy Business: Hydromorphologies and Wetware is an exhibition that explores fish, aesthetics and technology, using the methodology of prosthesis as a conceptual lens. Prosthesis, with the etymology of “maintained against attack,” involves practices and mechanics of bodily extension, intrusion, and hybridity for humans or fish. For this exhibition, it is approached as a transdisciplinary strategy that brings together histories of medical sciences, architecture, computation, and challenging binaries separating animal, human, and technology.

Directly in front of the WAF gallery stands the Haus des Meeres Aqua Terra Zoo, an aquarium housed within a World War II flak tower and home to over 10,000 aquatic beings. Within 4,000 m² of concrete, layered infrastructures of logistics and care sustain the staged aesthetics of underwater ecologies. Conceived as a question, Fishy Business considers how aquatic prostheses – whether applied to human, fish, or hybrid bodies – might open new ways of thinking at the intersections of care, engineering, and marine species within the spatialities of hydrobiological life.

Curated by Carmen Lael Hines and Lisa Jäger, the exhibition will include artistic positions from Agnes Questionmark, Andreia Santana, Juan Pablo Pacheco, Elena Rocabert, Nikolaus Eckhard, and Christina Gruber. Works will take place both in and outside the exhibition space, including early morning canoeing on the Danube, LARPing, workshops, and open discussions. Questions surfacing across the projects relate to how humans attempt to interface with aquatic species—from the supportive technologies designed to aid marine animals to the mythological imagination of hybrid forms such as merpeople. The exhibition seeks to nurture a transdisciplinary platform for discussion, performance, and play. Realized with the support of Acción Cultural Española (AC/E), La Embajada de España | Spanische Botschaft, Stadt Wien Kultur and BMWKMS.

Photos by Nacho Errando and Philipp Pess