In this conversation Pier Paolo Scelsi (CREA) and Izabela Anna Moren (Fondazione Studio Rizoma), co-curators of the upcoming exhibition Water Bodies, that will open in Venice at Spazio CREA next 5th November 2024, they explore the connection between body, water, culture, and Venice, while paying attention to the impacts of tourism and liquid capitalism. Body of Water will run throughout and after this year’s TRANSEUROPA Festival. The exhibition will count with the works of: Francesco Bellina, Replica Artist Books, Eliza Collin, Beatrice Donda, Roberto Ghezzi, Markus Heinsdorff, Valentina De’Matha’, Matteo de Mayda, Mauro Sambo, Giovanna Silva, Luigi Viola and Roger Weiss.
In a group exhibition, Body of Water brings together works that offer possible reflections on the relationship between human and the element of water. The focus is on the art of being able and having to live with water, fishing strategies, craftsmanship, protection, pollution and narrative, cultural and structural infrastructures for coexistence with liquid matter.
Pier Paolo Scelsi: Water is a universal element, transversal to cultures and religions, a place of transit and arrival, and has been a theme addressed by many throughout history. If you could have chosen any artist present or past to be involved in this exhibition, who would you have chosen? And why?
Izabela Anna Moren: As much as water can be a universal and existential element, I believe that there is a profound difference between those who grow up near seas, lakes and rivers and those who belong to continental lands. Or perhaps it is not related to birth but to feeling the sea inside. An artist I would have liked to involve is the American writer and photographer Allan Sekula who published Fish Story in 1995. It is his attempt to give form to the feeling that the sea would disappear in the collective and popular imagination of the modern world. Instead, he discovers that the sea has been ‘terrestrialised’ and is part of a liquid capitalist system, moving goods and earnings in search of new frontiers. I believe it is a unique work, equally a work of art and research, a form of critical realism that combines the theoretical, empirical and aesthetic across the board.
How do you think Venice and Venetians are still connected to the world through water, and how much or how has this relationship changed and will it change again?
PPS: The relationship with water is at the basis of the very birth of the city, first an element of defence and refuge for the first inhabitants of the islands of the lagoon from the barbarian invasions, then throughout history a way and route of communication and trade for the flourishing Serenissima republic. In contemporary times, water for the Venetians is an element of daily coexistence that places the city always on the edge and in the forefront of issues such as climate change, soil consumption and erosion, the limit that the anthropic element must set in the political construction of a city that cannot and must not become accustomed to and surrender to being a mere destination for mass tourism.
Working in Venice, imagining an exhibition as part of a festival, what are the challenges and difficulties you have to face and solve?
IAM: You know this much better than I do given CREA’s many years of experience. I believe that every exhibition has its difficulties, the most obvious ones being the time and the budget to be respected. In my work, the final form does not change the thought process much, for me an exhibition, a publication, a festival, a public programme … must respond to a lack, and offer a research process that can be enhanced over time, and that necessarily goes beyond an aesthetic and ephemeral pleasure. In a cultural economy that is now based almost exclusively on events, this aspect often falls by the wayside.
As a working environment and value system, how does having the space together with craftsmen and people closely linked to the lagoon condition you?
PPS: More than a conditioning, sharing this ecosystem with artisans leads to the creation of a deep bond between tradition and innovation. This union flows into a district where past and present intertwine. Working close contact with artisans and thus people deeply connected to the lagoon allows us to deepen our understanding of the local culture and its traditions. Having a shared space and collaborating with them greatly enriches and differentiates our reality, as craftsmen they bring with them ancestral skills and knowledge related to local materials and techniques, reminding us of the importance of the natural resources of the lagoon. What is the objective you would like to achieve through this exhibition? And how does it fit into the context of Transeuropa Festival?
IAM: As I told you when we met, doing an exhibition on water in Venice, especially as a non-Venetian, doesn’t seem like a great idea to me. Also because I think that then there is a stigmatisation whereby in Sicily we talk about the sea as in Venice about the lagoon, forgetting that these particular aspects and conditions are part of a wider network of territorial causes and effects such as the relationship between coast and hinterland, urbanism, mobility, tourism, agriculture and others. So for me it was important to focus on the relationship between human and water that brings this multidimensionality into the exhibition. The other aspect is definitely that hyperlocal phenomena are also hyperlocal in other places in the world, if these localisms talk to each other an exchange of traditions, conditions and innovations happens that is much more fruitful than the one-size-fits-all globalised world narrative. I believe this is the mission of the Transeuropa Festival, which is hosted in a different place for each edition.
But let us return to Venice. It is a dense, beautiful, precarious city, rich and perhaps destined to die faster than other cities. What does CREA allow you to do and what would you like it to do again in the future for you, the city and artists?
PPS: Reflected in the canals of Venice, we can look at the ancient and the contemporary as two currents that meet and merge. By experiencing the city with true attention and respect, one can still experience the processes that led to the writing of history and the history of art. A city that, like some others, is not destined to die, because it is a heritage of a cultural identity that leads from the past to the present but needs a precise direction, a commitment, to put the role of citizens, of residents, back at the center. Should this approach to the role and concept of the city fail, Venice would remain just a brand, a flag to be put on one’s list, a blurred selfie that could be taken in one of the other 97 cities in the world called Venice.
CREA, like many other realities, entered Venice above all to bring authenticity back to contemporary art in an everyday context, to imagine art as an element of everyone’s life, not as a frill, a decoration, but as an impulse, a trigger of doubts and reasoning around living in common.
The context in which we develop our projects allows creativity and stimulates a synergy between artists and the community, rediscovering the values of raw materials such as wood, fabric, clay and the brackish water of the lagoon. Future projects are many, but I hope to pursue artistic initiatives that raise awareness of the distortions and changes needed in our society.
Photo credits: Giovanna Silva, Cantiere Crea, 2024