First full day in Venice

Angela had risen early and gone for a walk - finding us a croissant on the way. After finishing them off with our coffee we went on our way to the ferry to get to the biennale.

It was a lovely ferry ride around the top of Venice.

We arrived at a residential area in Venice and walked through the quiet streets finding a boat called ‘Laura’ on the way. We then went through a park with a big statue with a pond below quarreling turtles.

We then arrived at the Giardini area of the Venice Biennale. Glenn and I have a 7 day ticket.

There are many pavilions - 1 per country with 1 artist representing the country. The thdd we ne this year is ‘Strangers Everywhere’.

We first checked out the Spain pavilion about the effect of colonialism on nature - with many detailed art pieces representing extinctions and changes made in the environment.

We then went to the Swiss pavilion with major videos about how the country tries to impose its culture in other countries.

The German pavilion was very good but we didn’t understand it until the end. We went through rooms as if in a house totally covered in dust - and then videos of a fantastic spaceship world. The dust house was the remains of earth before humans are forced to go to space and live for many generations to allow the world to recover from the damage we have caused.

The Japanese pavilion was based on saving energy and stopping leaks everywhere - as the artist had experienced on the Japanese subway- using everyday items to save the water.

The Korean was about eternity and memory from scent - with 16 different scents in the area.

The French pavilion had interesting fabric forms.

The British was about listening to the rain with lots of videos of rain in the uk. They also had an array of electronic junk - I recognized many devices that I used to have!

We then queued for the Australian pavilion where only around 20 people are allowed in at a time. This piece won the Golden Lion award for Best National Participation.

The artist is half aboriginal and half Scottish. His subject is ‘Kith and Kin’ with a huge family tree drawn in chalk on the wall and the roof. There are gaps where it is unknown due to the effect of white colonization.

There are hundreds of piles of documents arranged on a table in the centre of the room, containing official proceedings of inquests into Indigenous deaths in state care since that have occurred since 1991, the year the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody report was published, as well as 19 documents relating to members of the artist's family who had come into contact with former policies.

The black pool of water represents the lost aboriginal people from deaths in custody.

It’s a very impressive work - the best I saw in the day.

After that we went for lunch at a very nice looking restaurant overlooking the water.

It took a long time, but the food was good apart from Angela’s small vegetable dish, however it was very expensive- and the service was very slow and hard to get.

We then went back to the biennale to see a lot of different independent artists in the central area. Here are a few of the pieces we liked.

On the way to the USA pavilion we passed the glitzy outside of the Hungary pavilion.

The USA pavilion showed the effect on the native Indians with lots of bright beaded people and birds and dancing Indian girl videos.

The Nordic countries has worked in combination with Hong Kong artists to create a bamboo structure and embroidered jackets. There was a strange video respresenting a mythological half man half fish character.

We then went to the Danish pavilion which had been renamed the Greenland pavilion as Denmark now rules the country. It had many photographs from the artists life showing the effect of colonization.

That was enough art - we thought- for the day and started to walk back to the apartment.

We walked along the water with interesting views and buildings.

We then found the sculpture park for the biennale containing 3 Australian entrants.

This was a female fertility statue.

There were some more interesting sculptures - this was cute.

Glenn and Oli enjoyed the leaning tower.

We enjoyed the gondolas and the bridge of sighs.

Then we arrived in St Marks Square in a very nice light.

We then went over the Rialto Bridge - very busy with lots of gondolas.

We then found a very good gelato shop on the way back to the apartment.

After our big day we stayed in for the night and had a good game of 5 Crowns - our fun card game.