Peter Costello
One of the installations in the Vatican exhibition This is the year of the regular biannual art exhibition in Venice bears the title ‘Foreigners Everywhere’. Opened on April 20 it runs until November 24.
This year sees a return to the original post-war format of national pavilions.
The result has been an increase of interest from many new countries outside Europe, especially in Africa, which will add a great interest to visitors, reviving something of the thrill that the events had in the past.
This year the Vatican is taking part. Their national pavilion, entitled ‘With my Own Eyes’, is installed in the most unusual venue of a women’s prison (formerly a convent), where the actual prisoners act as guides. Pope Francis is due to make a visit to the show a little later.
Injustice
The Pope is well aware that since the days of Peter, Paul and other apostles and martyrs, prison has often been not retributive but has been itself a source of injustice. The exhibition aims to bring the nature of this injustice more into focus.
This is a very adventurous choice by the Vatican, moving to meet what might seem to be one of the most modern-minded exhibitions in the world, to deal with it on its own ground and in its own terms, with the Gospel’s view of the value of the individual person.
The intention of the outdoors pavilion is to “turn our eyes back to reality”, by highlighting how the women inmates “have been engaged to help transform their lives and embrace universal values through art”.
The Vatican exhibition will be hosted in the Giudecca Women’s Prison formerly a convent devoted to the care of wayward young women – to illustrate the ability of inmates to welcome art to transform their lives.
Seeing with one’s own eyes gives vision a unique status, as it directly involves us in reality and makes us not spectators, but witnesses”
The project is unprecedented for the Venice Biennale, for the Pavilion is dedicated to the theme of human rights and people living on the margins of society, and seeks to draw the world’s attention to those people who are largely ignored while fostering a culture of encounter.
The Holy See Pavilion invites the viewer to take Pope Francis’ words literally, to look others directly in the eyes, beyond their social status to encounter their humanity.
“Contemporary culture prefers to metaphorise sight,” said Cardinal Mendonça, at a recent news conference in the Vatican. “But seeing with one’s own eyes gives vision a unique status, as it directly involves us in reality and makes us not spectators, but witnesses.”
Consolidate
During the conference, Cardinal Mendonça remarked of Pope Francis’s visit to the Pavilion, that “It will be a historic moment as he will be the first pope to visit the Venice Biennale, which clearly demonstrates the Church’s willingness to consolidate a fruitful and close dialogue with the world of arts and culture.”
He added that it “aims to focus our attention on the importance of how we responsibly conceive, express, and build our social, cultural, and spiritual coexistence.”
To those proposing a visit to north Italy it will be well worth a visit, even though Venice now charges a visitors’ tax, and it’s valiantly attempting to control the mass tourism that threatens the very culture it claims to admire.