VENICE -- A ‘Superyacht’ parked outside an exhibition so focused on highlighting ecological balance, simply serves as an odious reminder of how far we haven’t come. The last time a British resident and his yacht came under the spotlight in the lagoon city was in 2011, when fellow art enthusiast and patron Roman Abramovich docked his 115 M ode to ostentation outside The Venice Biennale, drawing strong criticism from locals and leading the mayor to threaten an ‘oligarch tax.'

 At the following Biennale in 2013, Britain allowed artist Jeremy Deller to reference the incident in its pavilion with a giant mural of the British social reformer William Morris throwing the Superyacht into the Venetian lagoon.

 This years booby prize goes to the ‘Sea Pearl’ another vulgar hotel on sea, where staff outnumber guests, and every whim is catered for in one of the six luxurious designer suites onboard. Owned by billionaire petrochemicals chairman Sri Prakash Lohia., this borderless floater can consume 2,000 litres of fuel per hour, destroy protected marine environments, and dump huge amounts of waste into the sea.

 In his book Superyachts: Luxury, Tranquility and Ecocide, Gregory Salle, says that annual spending on superyachts is enough to wipe out third world debt, and mentions the various tax loopholes that superyachts benefit from. There are no penalties for the environmental damage they do either.

 Chris Armstrong writing in a British daily newspaper makes it clear that: “simply owning one - or indeed building one - is an act of enormous climate vandalism."

 jp-js