Venice Biennale - Week 1

My first week in Venice has flown by yet also feels like I’ve packed a lot in! I am covered in mosquito bites ( today’s new addition is wonderfully located on my eye…) and I can’t remember the last time that I didn’t feel like a puddle. But bodily challenges aside, I’ve had a great week hanging out with my the other Fellowship recipients (cracking bunch), exploring the city and settling into my role as a steward in the British Pavilion. My research and project work is coming along steadily as I’m really focusing on getting to grips with the rhythm and peculiarities of the city.

Here is a roundup of the week including my thoughts, observations, explorations and a spacial mention for the orang stuff…

First impressions
Venice is a city that overwhelms, and in the first few days I felt quite detached and desensitised to what I was seeing. It felt like someone had taped a postcard over my eyes and the scene in front of me was flat. In part I think this is due to so much happening, with meeting the group of Fellows and always being others, as well as taking on so much information and the new work role. Although it is also a feeling I’ve had in the past few years when travelling. I think a big part of this is to do with social media and the way we travel. With mass tourism and instant sharing of images, before I go to a new place I have already seen a hundred photos and have an expectation of what the place will be like. You arrive and suddenly it does not feel how you imagined it - you spend the first few days recalibrating and remapping the actual sensory experience of a place over the Google map and square Instagram posts you saw of it. There is also a sense of increasingly being prescribed a touristic experience. Bars and restaurants are made to look instagrammable - you know the photos you’re expected to take, the places you must see. Yet for me the joy of travelling is in the spontaneous moments, the things you discover, stumble upon, the conversations you have. Those experiences cannot be searched for, directed to. 

But Venice is starting to let me in a little. I have started avoid the big tourist areas which is hard as I know I will have to visit some of the big attractions at some point, but I really cannot deal with the crowds. I spent my first full day off exploring the island of Giudecca which sits directly opposite the main Venice island. I loved the island’s residential neighbourhoods which have beautiful social housing estates which contrast as a newer style of architecture than can be seen in most of Venice. in the form of social housing built around the 1970s, including a beautiful modern library which is sadly closed for the summer but I’m hoping to get access to. Giudecca is also home to galleries, studios and exhibition spaces, including Spazio Punch which is an exhibition space currently hosting the Georgian Pavilion, as well as a pop-up bookstore showcasing a curated selection of art, fashion and design books. I also really enjoyed exploring the ship yard area where I got a peek of gondolas being built and repainted. The areas also houses some smaller national Biennale pavilions, as well as artist’s studios. After a long day of walking around, I had a delicious seafood lunch at the island’s most famous restaurant La Palanca. The island is also home to the Harry’s Bar (inventor of the Bellini) offshoot Harry’s Dolci which seemingly is dedicated to desserts. The sea of starched white linen,  cumberbands that looked like waist trainers worn by the waiters and lack of menu has made me very curious about how much one can charge for dessert. Further investigations to follow.

The Biennale
As part of my Fellowship, I am working as a steward within the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. For those who have not visited the Venice Biennale, it is an art exhibition that opens in April and runs until November. There are two main locations within the city - the Giardini (garden) and the Arsenale (the city’s former armoury building). Within these pavilions there are general exhibitions of selected artists, as well as individual buildings or spaces belonging to different countries. So for example, the Giardini is mostly comprised of individual buildings belonging to a country, who then select one artist to represent them for this year. Essentially it is like Eurovision for art (although not limited to European countries). The British Pavilion is commissioned by the British Council who have this year selected Sonia Boyce as the artist. The exhibit continues Boyce’s social art practice, and is a sound and video installation celebrating Black British female musicians. I will be doing a separate post about the various pavilions I have visited so will not discuss it too much here, but to say that I am really enjoying working at the Biennale and have been blessed to have some wonderful conversations with visitors - both those from the arts world including MoMA, as well as tourist visitors. Sadly, I did not spot Adam Driver or Bill Murray who both had elaborate disguises of a mask and cap, and sunglasses respectively.

Sonia Boyce, ‘Feeling Her Way’, British Pavilion at the 2022 Venice Biennale

La Festa del Redentore
We are very lucky to have been in Venice for one of its biggest celebrations of the year, the Feast of the Redeemer. It is linked to the church of the Redentore which was built in 1567 in the hope of ending the plague that was ravaging the city. A year later the plague was gone, and therefore the church has been celebrated ever since. Of course this festival feels particularly poignant post-pandemic. It was such a beautiful celebration where the whole city came together to watch a 45 minute (too long) firework display over the Venice lagoon. The church of the Redentore is located on the island of Giudecca, therefore a floating bridge is assembled across the lagoon for people to walk across and make their prayers. We watched the fireworks from the Easternmost tip of the main island, a garden area called Sant’Elena. It was filled with young and old people with picnics, speakers, trestle tables and plenty of homemade food. One group had even commanded half a tennis court to set up their feast and created a dance floor. Afterwards, as tradition dictates, we went across to Lido (beach) island for a midnight swim. There was also a big beach rave on the island, however my tiredness and the sardine can bus journey of 20 minutes just proved to be more than I could face. Overall, an incredible opportunity to see a real Venetian tradition, and it made up for me missing the Lambeth Country Show.

Aperol spritz
I want to give a special mention to the joy of daily Aperol spirits. As I sit here at 10am in the morning, people are already knocking them back, and at 3-4 euros a pop, I can see why as they are cheaper than a 1 litre bottle of water at a bar. Salute to that!