The Diplomatic Suitcase

The Confluence of European Water Bodies is a collective of over 30 rivers, seas, lakes, lagoons, and glaciers across Europe coming together to explore the rights of nature and to rethink our relationship with the waters that sustain us. The Confluence was founded at the shores of the Mar Menor in Spain in 2023 by the Embassy of the North Sea, ILP Mar Menor and TBA21-Academy. The travelling exhibition of the Confluence: the Diplomatic Suitcase, is curated and designed by Jakob Kukula and Leon Lapa Pereira.

At the centre of the exhibition is the Diplomatic Suitcase — a travelling, multimedia installation packed with artefacts contributed by participating waters: the bones of a 1970s seahorse from Spain’s Mar Menor, algae from the Venice Lagoon, a bikini from Poland’s River Sisters. Each object carries with it stories of contamination, resistance, mourning, and care — and together, they call for urgent ecological and social transformation.

The project's first confluence happened on the shores of Mar Menor, Europe’s first ecosystem to gain legal personhood — a fragile, polluted saltwater lagoon in Spain that has become a symbol of environmental justice. There, in September 2023, the participating waters gathered for the first time to share strategies for water diplomacy, ritualise their alliance, and present a powerful Proclamation in Brussels calling for ecosystemic rights and renewed relationships with nature.
In 2024, the Confluence strengthened its network with a visit to the Venice Lagoon, where community building and knowledge sharing became deeply important. This year we gather in the Netherlands, which brought us where you are now.

This exhibition invites visitors into the emotional and political currents of this alliance. It offers both a warning and a hopeful vision — one in which European waters, long exploited, begin to reclaim their agency, shaping not only our landscapes but our laws, cultures, and futures.

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Participating Waters include:

Akerselva, Baltic Sea, Deep Sea, Dogger Bank, Drina, Genova waters, Irish Sea & Liffey, Klarälven, Laguna de la Janda, Loire, Maas, Mar Menor, Mediterranean, North Sea, Odra, Os_lo Fjord, Ouse, Pek, Piave, Reuss, Reva, Rhine, Rhône, Snæfellsjökul, Spree, Tara, Tagliamento, Tavignanu, Tejo, Ticino, Vättern, Venice lagoon, Viskan, Vistula, Wattenmeer and Zenne

Commissioned by Embassy of the North Sea, ILP Mar Menor, TBA21–Academy/Ocean Space
Curated and designed 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
With support from Creative Industries Fund NL
Special thanks to the water bodies of Europe