Italy
2018 Venice Travelling Studio
Studio Leaders: Mr Scott Woods and Professor Alan Pert
Introduction
The Venice Biennale (La Biennale Di Venezia) is the world’s premier international cultural festival. Since its inaugural Art Biennale in 1895, the Venice Biennale has grown to incorporate recurring festivals of Art, Architecture, Dance, Music, Cinema and Theatre in locations throughout Venice, Italy.
The first Venice Architecture Biennale (La Biennale Architettura) was held under the direction of famed Italian architect and theorist Paolo Portoghesi in 1980. Thereafter directors including Aldo Rossi (1985 and 1986), Kazuyo Sejima (2010) and Rem Koolhaas (2014) helped forge the festival’s formidable reputation as a generator and proliferator of new discourses of architecture globally. Such is the importance of La Biennale Architettura a who’s-who and who-wants-to-be of world architecture collide on the famed pavements of Piazza San Marco, Ponte di Rialto and Punta della Dogana to soak in vast swathes of exhibition, performance and discussion with established and emerging international architects, urbanists, theorists, curators, scholars and many from outside the discipline.
Process
La Biennale Architettura 2018 runs May – November. The 2018 Venice Travelling Studio provides students with the ideal means to observe, document and critically engage with the vanguard of contemporary curatorial practices which are re-defining architectural exhibition making, representation, publicity, museology, and indeed the role of the architect today. These observations and analyses will be supported by themes of New Institutionalism (the global proliferation of the temporary festival phenomenon – the Venice Biennale being only one), Identity and Curatorship particularly within the context of Venetian practices and the work of Carlo Scarpa renowned for his many fine modernist buildings within the Veneto region.
The Venice Travelling Studio positions students within the best possible context to cite, investigate and propose new paradigms for the realisation of architecture as curatorial condition.
Visit
To observe and analyse the inter-disciplinary and curatorial role of the architect we will visit:
- The two primary areas of the Biennale: Giardini (containing the Australian Pavilion and other national pavilions) + Arsenale (containing the major invited exhibitors) + other collateral events and exhibitions throughout Venice.
- The works of Carlo Scarpa inc., Querini Stampalia House Museum, Olivetti Typewriter Store, IUAV Institute of Architecture, Canova Museum and Castelvecchio Museum in Verona.
Dates:
Applications close: 1 April 2018
Teaching Start Date: 2 July 2018
Subject census date: 6 July 2018
Overseas travel dates: 2 - 9 July 2018
Teaching End Date: 1 September 2018
Final submission/presentation: 1 September 2018
OH&S information session: To be confirmed
To Apply:
Applicants will be assessed and selected based on academic merit, and “expression of interest/personal statement”. Students must address the following question: “State why you wish to undertake this studio, what you could contribute to the studio and how will the experience shape your future practice.”
To apply, go to EDSC Travelling Studios page at http://edsc.unimelb.edu.au/graduate/subject-options/travelling-studios and click the ‘Travelling Studio Application Form’. Complete all mandatory fields, as well as attaching your personal statement, and submit by 1 April 2018.
You will be contacted of the application outcome via your University of Melbourne email account.