The rains finally moved in on our last day in Venice. This gave us a chance to do some indoor exploring with a visit to the Palazzo Ducale and the recently opened Biennale Architettura – taking place across the city but with permanent headquarters at the Arsenale complex. The exhibition’s tagline for this still unusual moment in history was ‘How will we live together?’
I’ve long dreamed of being in Venice for the Biennale events and the timing during our visit was complete happenstance. It took a while to find the main entrance and then even longer to ‘safely’ buy our own tickets online, but once inside, we were inspired, impressed and occasionally, as with all great art, perplexed.
The themes of ecology, togetherness and inequality seemed to infuse almost all the installations. The pandemic clearly pushed the intensity of these contemporary concerns even more to the forefront and led to engaging, challenging and hopeful visual statements.
We putted around as Aleksander napped and discussed the subjects presented, realizing that we really should have carved out some more time for this event. Eventually he woke up and we double-stepped to the exits as the daily opening hours were winding down. We hustled home as the rain clouds darkened overhead, all the architectural insights almost as top of mind.
It would be great to get back to Venice over the rest of our time here in Italy and even greater if it coincided with more Biennale exhibitions. Either way, it’s nice to see large global events that have become marginalized or cancelled returning to some semblance of normal. I suppose, in answer to the Biennale’s theme, we just all want to live together ‘normally’ again.
Dad In The World 