I have been visiting Venice for decades, and perhaps inevitably it has accumulated stories. I have been thinking a lot recently about accumulation, about the things we gather and what we hold on to. Venice feels a little like that to me. It is a city I don’t think I will ever quite finish with. Each visit adds another layer: art, craft, people, places, memories and unexpected connections. Perhaps that is what keeps drawing me back.
My first encounter was when my husband, Anthony Corner, was at the Royal College of Art. The College had a flat and studio in Venice for students to use. This unusual privilege gave me the chance to spend time in a city of great beauty, yet one with a strange, dangerous and gritty quality that got under my skin. Those early student days in Venice became the beginning of an enduring relationship with the city for both of us. As Byron says in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, “I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs, A palace and a prison on each hand.” It is this discordance that appeals to me.
It is so out of the ordinary. Even in the 21st century, when we have instant and ready access, online or in person, to so many wonders of the world, Venice is mesmerising. It is an accumulation of treasures gathered from across the world. Its trading history is married with unique engineering skills and vision to create a city apparently floating on water. It is a testament to human creativity, vision and ingenuity.
Its enormous wooden piles support palazzos, bridges and churches above the lagoon. Its engineers and construction workers are still skilled in how you integrate countless precious artefacts from across the globe and keep them standing. Its trading heritage and republican politics are evident everywhere. In the Middle Ages it was renowned for its serenity, hence its name La Serenissima, as it brought together monarchy, aristocracy and democracy. This history permeates how the city and Venetians see themselves. They are physically and intellectually separate from the Italian mainland the main body of Italy. It is impossible to ignore its religious context evident in the numerous churches, cathedral, friaries, convents.
It is impossible to ignore its religious context, evident in the numerous churches, basilicas, friaries and convents.
It is a sensory overload. And a constant reminder of why, as humans, we need to create.
It is a maze, but one that stimulates your memory as you try to remember where you have come from and where you are aiming for. Every day you accumulate thousands of steps: walking up and down steps, crossing bridges, peering into canals, exploring churches and buildings, stopping at cafés, listening to Vivaldi and promenading. People-watching is essential. So too is understanding that culture, aesthetics and beauty are central.
Venice also has a faded quality and has experienced dire poverty and exploitation. It is easy to understand why plague masks are so integral to the souvenir stalls. The word quarantine itself has a Venetian history: ships and people were isolated for forty days before being allowed to enter the city.
Venice is damp, dark, brooding, unrelenting. It is a constant physical challenge, and this is central to its darkness and discordance. You quickly realise that you cannot halt nature. The Grand Canal and lagoon glitter in the sunlight, but at night, looking from a vaporetto, the water can seem so black that if you fell in you would never reach the bottom. It is impossible not to get lost. “So, you never know as you move through these labyrinths whether you are pursuing a goal or running from yourself, whether you are the hunter or his prey”. (Brodskey, Watermark )
It has been, and still is, exploited. Yet it is also a living city, with a hospital, prison, schools and supermarkets. Watching rubbish being efficiently collected and transported on barges is something to behold. So too is seeing a concrete mixer making its way down the Grand Canal alongside gondolas full of tourists. Around 50,000 people live in the historic city, while many Venetians live in the surrounding areas, where daily life is less physically demanding. In Venice you must constantly walk, and almost everything has to be carried.
Over the years I have visited the major art and architecture biennales and design exhibitions, been present during the film festival and Carnevale, and taken part in a celebration of fashion. Some exhibitions still resonate with me.
The Arsenale exhibition at the 2013 Biennale made me think about the work of outsiders. There I encountered the work of Arthur Bispo do Rosário, who spent five decades in a Brazilian psychiatric institution creating works intended to prepare the world for Judgement Day. Looking back, I realise I was becoming interested in the relationship between mental health and creativity, something I have since become far more involved with as Chair of Maudsley Charity. How is art defined when it is created by outsiders?
The 2017 exhibition The Boat is Leaking. The Captain Lied at Fondazione Prada was a multilayered installation and complex collaboration that investigated misunderstanding and the critical condition of contemporary life. It made me think about the role of the artist in tackling climate, environment and displacement, and about the role of storytelling. It continues to haunt me.
I have also organised exhibitions in Venice. Glasstress in 2013 was a collaboration with Berengo Studio, bringing together artists and designers through the medium of glass, with new works created and exhibited alongside existing ones. In 2018, a showcase of work by London College of Fashion MA Fashion Artefact students was held during the design festival, followed, memorably, by a private-view event at the Venetian Communist Party headquarters.
My husband, Anthony, an artist, has now had three shows in Venice. His interest in materiality and memory sits naturally within the Venetian context. Artists and creatives genuinely matter here. Perhaps that is why so many come to Venice: to be reassured that there are still places where being creative is seen as something special and worth valuing.
Despite Venetian concerns that traditional arts and crafts are disappearing, the city continues to showcase extraordinary skills. You can still find practising artisans and their studios. I have visited mosaic and velvet-weaving workshops. Glass is everywhere, and although much of what is sold in souvenir shops now comes from China, it is still possible to work with traditional and contemporary glass blowers.
There are galleries and project spaces for artists and craftspeople. At times this reality feels as though it is battling against tourism and the wealthy international visitors who can treat Venice as a plaything. Yet Venice remains a great cultural and artistic magnet. It is why so many fashion figures and leading artists have bought palazzos and created foundations to showcase their collections alongside their artistic and fashionable credentials.
One of my five favourite museums is here: the Fortuny Museum. Fashion, art and theatre are woven together there in a juxtaposition that, in so many ways, epitomises this great city.
If you were to ask me for my abiding sense of Venice, I would of course have to talk about the water. I do not just mean the ever-present canals, using the vaporetto like a bus, or taking a traghetto across the Grand Canal. It is the constant interaction with nature, with water that is always rising and falling. There is nothing like sunlight reflected across the lagoon, or the beautiful reflections of palazzos in the canals at night when the surface of the water is pitch black.
But an even more abiding memory is the rain. It is relentless. And because you must walk everywhere, an umbrella cannot fully protect you. Then there are the floods. There is no tidal wave. The water simply rises from the lagoon to cover your feet. It is almost imperceptible. You finish your coffee, step outside to walk back to your hotel, and discover that you need plastic covers for your feet and legs.
But in the end, for me, it is the bells. Their sound is part of the fabric of the city. They have a particular melancholic quality that somehow epitomises Venice. Their presence follows you around the city and lingers in your memory.