Venice (2023)

  




 My mother had five children but no passport. She couldn’t drive a car, and never once flew in an aeroplane. She only left Scotland on a few occasions to visit relatives in Ireland. Before she got sick I asked her “if there is one place I could take you when I grow up, where would that be?” Without hesitation Kathleen answered “Venice.” My mother was a great reader of romantic fiction. Perhaps she dreamed of the city’s beautiful architecture, it’s bridges, canals, and gondolas. In the four decades following her death I travelled all over the world but Venice was one city that always eluded me, or perhaps I subconsciously avoided it. In May 2023 I was invited to attend an event there. My long held apprehension was outweighed by a sense of urgency to see a city now facing the existential threat of global warming and the Acqua Alta. 


 



 In 421CE the Veneti fled from invading forces on the Italian mainland and founded their eponymous new city. They built on a marshy lagoon by driving wooden piles into the mud. Over the centuries their city-state became extremely wealthy and powerful through trade backed up by liberal use of violence. From late medieval times the city’s Arsenale complex was a centre for shipbuilding on an unparalleled scale. During peak production in the early sixteenth century a ship was completed almost daily. Today the vast Arsenale buildings host international art and architecture exhibitions in alternate years. The biennales generate enormous sums of money for the local economy. High volumes of tourism on the other hand have affected the environment and quality of life for Venetians. House prices have soared upwards and many families who have lived in Venice for generations can no longer afford to remain. The main island has lost more than two thirds of its resident population since the 1950s. 


 



 I know a Venetian man who now lives in Glasgow. He told me I should get up early in the morning before tourists flood the streets and just walk in all directions to see the city for itself. I took his advice. I walked and listened and tried to feel the texture of the place. Everywhere I walked I saw ancient terracotta coloured bricks, exposed and eroding, behind collapsing white and red and yellow ochre plasterwork. The light was soft and the air moist in the mornings, though it warmed throughout the course of the day. The salty smell of seawater grew stronger as the tide rose. Cats, seagulls and pigeons roamed the early morning streets feeding on scraps of refuse from the night before. City council workers collected bags of rubbish; shop and café owners opened their shutters and put out tables and chairs. Across the narrow streets lines of clothing hung out to dry. Venice is crumbling but alive, it feels like it will endure and I hope that it does. 


 



 And what of Kathleen? She urged me to find ‘the vocation’, to become a priest. Things turned out very differently than expected or hoped for. She died of cancer when she was forty-eight. I was sixteen. I became an atheist, a Roman Catholic atheist. Thirty years later I found my way into art school. At Venice, my friend Hamshya Rajkumar and I showed work we had made together at Ravenscraig as part of Scotland’s contribution to the Biennale Architettura 2023. La vita va avanti!

 

 

* Photographs made with Hamshya as Tine Collective, at Ravenscraig as part of the pioneer series. #AFragileCorrespondence

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