The Diplomatic Suitcase—the Confluence’s traveling exhibition— has journeyed to Galéria Jána Koniarka in Trnava, Slovakia, as part of the exhibition ´Contracts of Recognition´, curated by Lucia Bergamaschi & David Přílučík, on view until May 31, 2026.
´Contracts of Recognition´ depart from a set of intertwined questions: How can alliances be imagined beyond the human? What does it mean to represent more-than-human entities within legal, political, and artistic frameworks? And how does ownership—of land, bodies, or futures—shape the conditions under which recognition becomes possible?
The exhibition unfolds through three permeable categories—Alliance, Representation, and Ownership. They do not function as fixed sections, but as conceptual orientations that allow the works to resonate across different registers. Many of the practices presented move across these dimensions, revealing how legal imagination, ecological struggle, and artistic form are deeply entangled.
Among them, The Diplomatic Suitcase (2023) tells stories about legal framing, ecological discourses, and activist struggles of our water bodies. Previously shown at Spore Berlin, Studio Carlo Pioppo in Venice, The Contemporary Art Museum Lisbon, and Mediamatic in Amsterdam, this work centers on a multispecies approach to negotiating “with” rather than “on behalf” of water.
The Diplomatic Suitcase, 2023
Art direction and design by Leon Lapa Pereira (Embassy of the North Sea) & Jakob Kukula (Spree Berlin)
Co-produced by the Confluence of European Water Bodies
Graphic design: Eva van Bemmelen and Corine Datema
Commissioned by Embassy of the North Sea, ILP Mar Menor, and TBA21–Academy
With support from Creative Industries Fund NL
Special thanks to the water bodies of Europe.