Dilli Haat - Delhi's Artisanal Markets

Delhi has different markets where one can explore the products of artisans from different parts of India. For example, silk and Khadi-cotton clothes can be found at many mainstream shops. In addition, there are some specialised spaces which present handicrafts, specialised agricultural and herbal products, handwoven clothes etc. from all over India.

One such place is close to the Connaught Place market in central part of New Delhi - the different state emporiums on Baba Kharag Singh Marg. In these emporiums, each state of India sells its products.

Another space is at the Dilli Haat markets, which regularly bring small artisans from different parts of India to showcase and sell their works. (Image, left)

In October 2026, I was in Delhi for a brief family visit and visited the Dilli Haat located near the INA Metro-station. During my visits, I am always curious about talking to people and learning about them. My visit to Dilli Haat was no different, it was an opportunity to speak to people. This post is about that visit and it presents three artisans who had come there to present their products.   

The Cow-dung Art From Satara, Maharashtra 

Indian villages use cow-dung in two main ways. First is by making cow-dung cakes called Upla in Hindi, which are used as fuel for cooking. Food cooked on this fire has a specific smell, which can be perceived as a good fragrance by persons used to it, or as a "strange smell" by persons who are new to it. I have some happy childhood memories about going around to collect cow-dung in my maternal grandfather's farm-house, and of my grand-mother cooking over the upla-fire. 

The second use is by adding a little water to the cow-dung, and then using that liquid as a daily coating for floor and other house surfaces in mud-houses. Different surfaces in the mud houses can be damaged easily, even by daily walking, and need to be repaired periodically. The cow-dung liquid is considered a good way to do that repair because it is supposed to reduce the house temperature and to keep away mosquitoes and other parasites.

I was surprised when I saw that one of the stalls in Dilli Haat in INA was selling art-works made from cow-dung. It was managed by a young man, Sunil Sawant (image left). I spoke to him and he told me: "I am from the eco-conscious cultural and artistic hub called Gaumaya Art Centre in Nagewadi, about 8 km north of Satara. We use organic cow-dung, which we call Gaumaya, to create our art-works. It is a grassroots initiative for promoting rural youth empowerment and for preserving traditional heritage of Indian crafts and cattle-rearing practices."

I was curious to know how they had come to idea of using cow-dung, so Sunil explained, "This process was initiated by my elder brother Veera, who went to study art at the J. J. School of Arts in Mumbai and after completing his studies in 2008, started to experiment with different organic materials for creating artistic handicrafts. He finally created the "clay" for his artworks by mixing cow-dung with Raal, organic Gond (Gum), powder of Tamarind seeds and other materials." 

Then he promoted the setting up of a cultural and artistic hub in Nagewadi called Veera Art Village, with the aim of reviving India's ancient craft traditions, preserving indigenous cow heritage, and empowering rural livelihoods. They create Indic idols and other decorative and sacred objects, inspired by traditional Indian architectural ideas (Vaastu-Shastra) from such materials. You can take a look at the Veera Art Village website for more information about their products.

Traditional Indian beliefs consider cow-dung and other cow products as auspicious for the homes. I also bought from this stall a Gaumaya plaque with a bronze finish, with a prayer in Sanskrit to Sidhi Vinayak. (image below)

 

Bunkar Seva Kendras - Weaver Service Centres

Weavers Service Centres (WSCs) under India's Ministry of Textiles support artisan-weavers in different parts of India. There are 29 such centres in India. Different states have WSCs in different cities depending upon their weaving traditions. For example, Uttar Pradesh has 2 WSCs, in Varanasi and Meerut, while Rajasthan has one WSC located in Jaipur.

The WSCs provide technical support and training, help in accessing weaving materials and support for selling their products. Artisan-weavers are invited to present and sell their products in Dilli Haat.

One of the stalls in Dilli Haat was showing a weaving loom on which Mr Anil Kumar (image left) from Varanasi was hand-weaving with jute and cotton fibres. He explained to me that about from cotton and silk fibres, they are also experimenting with innovative organic materials such as banana-fibre and a fibre made from the leaves of the snake-plant.

Over the past decades, all over the world hand-weaving techniques have been replaced by machine-weaving and industrial weaving, because they are faster and cheaper to produce. However, hand-weaving can provide a specific finish to the products, which is impossible with machines. These products are costlier and can appeal to specific customers and fashion houses, but are not suitable for mass-markets.

Ensuring that these hand-weaving skills are maintained and safeguarded for future is an increasingly complex challenge for our societies unless a minimum of economic sustainability if guaranteed. (Right image with a handwoven art piece at the entrance of Dilli Haat)   

Allam Ansari, Silk Weaver from Varanasi

When I was a child, every year a couple of persons from Varanasi used to visit our home in Old Delhi, before the start of the marriage season in October-November. They came with colourful handwoven Banarasi silk sarees wrapped in white sheets, on their heads. I used to sit there mesmerised by their beautiful shimmering colours and designs, as my maternal grandmother, my mother and aunts, took hours to choose their new sarees for a marriage or a function.

Visiting the stall of Allam Ansari (image left) in Dilli Haat reminded me of those days and those two individuals.

Allam Ansari continues his family's tradition of weaving colourful silk sarees. He told me, "I am from Banaras and we have our own silk-looms. It was what my grandfather and his grandparents did and it was something that I saw in my home as a child. No one had to teach me weaving, I don't remember when I had learned it by watching others. I never went to school and was fourteen when I became a weaver. We started coming here in Dilli Haat around 25 years ago. Before that, we used to visit people's houses and shops to sell directly to them. We have our traditional designs but we keep on adding new elements to them. We also experiment with new colour-combinations. Now most of the silk weaving is done on machines because people don't want to pay more for the hand-woven clothes. My children are still young but I hope that some of them will learn hand-weaving and keep alive the old traditions of our family."

In the End

Dilli Haat is a beautiful place full of colours, and going around, looking at sculptures, artworks, home decorations, handicrafts, shawls, dresses and sarees, is a sensory experience, similar to a walk in a colourful garden.

At one stall from Kashmir, I bought some colourful papier-meche bells for Christmas tree. I wanted to speak to that guy but he had other clients waiting for him, so he did not have time to talk to me.

Dilli Haat also has restaurants from different parts of India, where you can try their distinct cuisines. If you are visiting Delhi, do ask about the nearest Dilli Haat and find time to visit it. It is a good place for buying small colourful handicraft artists as gifts and souvenirs of your visit.

***** 

Venice Art Biennale: ECC Palazzo Mora

A couple of weeks ago, I had gone for a walk in Cannaregio area of Venice to visit some of the collateral art exhibitions of Venice Art Biennale. That included a visit to the art exhibition in the European Cultural Centre (ECC) in Palazzo Mora.

In this post, I want to present 15 artworks that I liked most in the art exhibition in ECC. The image on the left is a sculpture titled "Soleil" and it is part of an installation by Donna Isham, which you can see below at number 10 in this post.

This is the third part of my visit-diary to art events in Cannaregio area of Venice. You can also check the first and second parts of this diary at the links below:

Venice Biennale: Art in Cannaregio Part 01

Venice Biennale: Art in Cannaregio Part 02

Art Exhibition at ECC - Palazzo Mora, Venice

Since 2011, during Venice Art Biennale, ECC organises an art exhibition titled "Personal Structures". This year (2026) the theme of this exhibition is "Confluences". There are three venues of this exhibition - Palazzo Mora, Palazzo Bembo and Marinaressa gardens. It includes a mix of installations, paintings, sculptures and performances. Entrance to the exhibition is free and it is on till 22 November 2026.

This post looks only at the artworks presented in Palazzo Mora, which is located in Cannaregio area of Venice. I am hoping to go to visit the exhibition at Palazzo Bembo very soon.

This year's theme Confluences is inspired by meeting of rivers, looking at coming together of ideas, backgrounds and ways of thinking. It explores how personal experiences connect with shared realities.

Click on the images for a bigger view of the artworks. 

My 15 Favourite Artworks at Palazzo Mora

Let me now present my favourite artworks. It was not easy to choose only fifteen among the hundreds of artworks presented this year and these represent my subjective preferences, which tend towards kitsch and colourful works.

These are not presented in any particular order. In fact, at the end, I have written about which of these 15, I liked most!

1. Sculptures by Judith Unger, US

Judith has some female sculptures in ceramics with some gold work and design on the theme of rape, mostly in bright yellows. I have taken some of them in the image below.

I had seen similar works by Judith earlier, though they had softer hues. Her sculptures are often about women and their fight for dignity, about fighting injustice and healing from trauma.

Somehow, in my mind the bright and sunny yellow colour, does not match with the sadness and pain of rape. Therefore, even if the faces of the women in these sculptures are sad, the sculptures themselves seem to express hope and resilience.  

 

2. Paintings by G-Sim Seyeon, S. Korea

Seyeon has some mixed-media artworks on canvas, titled "We shared a moment". They are hypnotising, looking like erupting fireworks or some cosmic explosion.

G-Sim or Seyeon Kim as he is known as, is a south Korean artist based in Osaka Japan.   He describes his work as focusing "on capturing microscopic "moments"—vanishing instants that appear and disappear in the blink of an eye". 

Many of his early works explored exploding fireworks, while recent series depict crashing ocean waves and coastal waters. Thus, this year in the Venice Biennale, he seems to have gone back to his fireworks inspired art.

Each of his canvas is big and I could have stood there and looked at it for a long time. Unfortunately, the image can give you only a glimpse of that feeling.

 

3. Painting by Kaoru Shibuta, Japan

It is an acrylic on canvas artwork titled "Ochatsumi days". The artist says that he has picked up the invisible and harmonious sounds of Ochatsumi (tea-picking) in a tea garden - the rustle of the leaves, the wind, atmosphere of the fields - into a visual composition.

Thus, this artwork can be imagined as the musical notes of sounds in the visual language of the artist. Perhaps this means that he has synesthesia, which is a neurological condition in which senses have cross-connections, so that sounds can be perceived as colours.

Shibuta was born in Hokkaido, and is now based in Kagawa, Japan. He synthetically transforms music and natural sounds into paintings, like this work.

In terms of simplicity and a child-like sense of beauty, his artworks remind me of Mirò. 

4. Woven and Printed Fabric Painting by Desmond Beach, US

The artwork has two young black women standing close, leaning and supporting each other, against a colourful background with a layered surface of fabrics, which are expressing ancestral archives. It is titled "The Quiet Between Us".

The artwork includes a digital painting on jacquard woven fabrics, which have been stitched together by hand and by machine. I appreciated that the fabric was woven with Jacquard, a weaving shuttle first developed and used in Schio in the late 1800s, whose name is celebrated in our Jacquard gardens.

Desmond is an interdisciplinary artist, professor and researcher with a PhD in art and media.

 

5. The Mixed Media Sculpture by Martha Russo, US

This artwork has mainly ceramics, but it also includes paper-clay, glaze, wood, metal, polyurethane foam and paper, to create a mass of writhing snake-like tentacles forming a rough cube. It is described as "the ancient earth-bound substance embracing the precarious - extending into space, flirting with gravity and pulsing with fiction". 

This artwork is titled "Nomos - Venetian Cube".

Martha's biography is very inspiring. A world-class athlete and a hockey player, she suffered a career-ending injury in 1984.  An year later, in 1985 she did her BA in developmental biology and psychology. However, the injury changed the way she looked at herself and her role in the world. She began studying fine arts in Florence, Italy and did a master in fine arts in USA. She is involved with Artnauts, a socially and politically aware art collective and teaches at the in the Art and Art History Department of University of Colorado Boulder and at the College of Engineering and Applied Science

6. Paintings by Demi Padua, Philippines

This artwork includes some acrylic paintings on canvas. Its figures remind me of the steampunk costumes.

Demi is a painter, multimedia artist and a graphic designer.  Born in Calapan, Oriental Mindoro, Philippines, he was interested in becoming an artist from his childhood. His paintings bring together his experiences in theatrical production and design with visual arts.

He says that he uses layers of printed material as a collage over his paintings and shows peeling away of those additional layers to unmask his real identity, without fear of perception.

That sounds like conflicting ideas about about his gender and sexual identity, but I am not sure if he means it in that way. However, this understanding adds a sense of sadness and wistfulness to his figures. 

 

7. Paintings by José Moñú, Spain

José Moñú is an artist from Zaragosa (Spain). His artworks are acrylic paintings on canvas in bright colours. Entering in this room, felt like entering a room with deforming mirrors, where can laugh at our faces and bodies. 

He is known for his large-format, boldly coloured acrylic works featuring people with deformed, dynamic, blurred, or melted heads, which has been described as abstract expressionism.

 

8. Artworks by Vasily Klyukin, France

In this exhibition, Vasily has created some artworks by placing plywood and polycarbonate on a surface and painting them with varnish paint and acrylic to create giant puzzle-art.

His subjects are not immediately clear. For example, in the image on the left, you can see the woman with the baby, a familiar figure of Madonna with baby Jesus.

He explains his approach to art as "Demetricizm" - an art revealing the force-lines from which form is born. Originally from Russia, Vasily is based in Southern France and Monaco, he is a visual artist, sculptor and architect.

Vasily is also known for a digital design project called “Designing Legends,” which has been published as a book of imaginary architecture.

9. Ceramic Art by Lara Bohinc, Great Britain

Lara is a Slovenian-born artist, based in London UK, who creates functional ceramics in a variety of materials including stone, metal, glass and wood.

Her three artworks shown here are titled seabed vase, marine vase and trap vessel. There have been created as part of the theme work called "Shared Streams", with materials that seem to suggest a state of flux and flow.

She runs the Bohinc Studio in London, which works at the intersection of furniture, functional sculpture, and material research.

10. Installation by Donna Isham, USA

This installation paired together a diptych of paintings with a ceramic sculpture. The two paintings are - "She never left" defined as a fractured portrait and "I found it at the curio shop", while the sculpture is titled "Soleil", exploring the fluid boundary between figuration and abstraction. 

I could see the connection between the woman in the sculpture (it can be seen at the top of this post) and the painting on the left, but was not sure of how the two linked with the second painting. However, it was the one artwork that seemed to express the idea of "confluence", the theme of this exhibition. 

On her website, Donna has written, "I am an expressionist artist driven by a desire to uncover and communicate the hidden human spirit. Working across painting, sculpture, and immersive paintings ... works are created in collaboration with my husband, musician Mark Isham, extending the emotional and psychological dimensions of my visual practice through sound and animation." 

11. Artwork by Fintan Whelan, Ireland/Germany

The giant abstract artwork with mixed media on canvas has beautiful swirling colours. He is the only artist in the exhibition, for which no country was mentioned. I checked and found that he is of Irish origin and now lives in Germany, but has exhibitions all around the world, so probably feels like a citizen of the world. Appropriately, this work is titled "Earth's Abundance".

 

12. An Art-Science Collaboration by Shizuku Takahashi & Geraldine Ondrizek 

This beautiful work brings together a science author from Japan and an art professor from Oregon, USA. They both look at the journey of a single human cell as it develops.

Shizuko Takahashi has written a book titled, "Becoming you: A Journey From a Single Cell" and Geraldine Ondrizek has made a seres of 12 paintings to illustrate part of that journey.

The image below presents the steps from 2 to 5 of that journey and are titled 2. A world in a grain of sand; 3. The intricate you; 4. One cell; and, 5. Passing down.

Dr Takahashi is a Research Fellow at the National University of Singapore at the Centre for Biomedical Ethics. Her interest is in exploring the ethical boundaries and clinical practices of technologies like oocyte cryopreservation (egg freezing) and prenatal screening. At the same time, she is also an accomplished children's book author and illustrator. 

13. Marble Sculpture by Pablo Damian Cristi, Italy-Argentina

The marble sculpture is titled "Angel without wings".

I loved the way he has used marble to represent the clothe covering the figure, covering her face like a translucent veil, torn in places like her knees.

Using a solid surface like marble to represent a soft fabric, has a long history in art, but still every time, I see something like this, it makes me pause.

Pablo has written on his instagram page that he likes using historical sculpting techniques to push the boundaries of contemporary sculpture. He is engaged in creating a monumental sculpture of Christ carrying the cross, inspired by the two sculptures of Michaelangelo on this theme. 

14. Artworks of the Orleans Gallery, USA

I loved the Jazzy vibes of these artworks from the New Orleans gallery which include works of different artists.

The artists include the following - Andrew LaMar Hopkins, Karen Ocker, Michie Cooper, Adam Trest, Joe Mustachia, Tony Bernard, Jen Morgan, Kloe Donley and Morgan Gray. Each of these artists have so much work on their Instagram pages, to which I have given links and you can spend hours looking at each of them.

 

15. Sculpture by Tim David Trillsam, Germany

The bronze sculpture is titled Bruchpilot, and has a nude sculpture of a man with a pilot-cap worn in the first world war period, and he has wings on his arms.

Tim expresses the fragility and resilience of the human form in his sculptures, that have elongated forms similar to those developed under the Mannerism movement.

His own typical touch is added in the oversized hands and feet of his sculptures.

Take a look at his website and his Instagram page, he has some very interesting artwork there.  He describes his artistic journey as "he seamlessly weaves classical sculpture education with a distinctive creative identity honed at prestigious art academies". 

In The End

I hope that you have enjoyed looking at the 15 of my favourite artworks from the European Cultural centre's art exhibition for the Venice Art Biennale 2026. If you are in Venice before 22 November 2026, find time to visit it - it is free and has a lot of beautiful art to inspire and give joy to you.

Let me conclude this journey with a Chinese artist, whom I did not include in the above fifteen but I had liked - Zhu Na. Zhu Na is a contemporary artist, actress, and pop singer from Mainland China, and her artwork is titled "My grandmother's Qipao".

Qipao is supposed to be a traditional Chinese dress, but the green dress worn by the girl-sculpture below does not look like one - may be it means that even traditional dresses could look very modern?  

If you have to choose one artwork among all those presented above, which one would you choose? I am not able to decide between Fintan Whelan, José Moñú and Kaoru Shibuta.

***** 

 

Venice Biennale: Art in Cannaregio 02

At the Venice Art Biennale, I visited some collateral events in Cannaregio area close to the Santa Lucia Venice railway station. You can also check the first part of this visit-diary, in which I visited 3 such events.

This second part of my visit-diary looks at the art-exhibitions at Palazzo Donà delle Rose and the International Graphic School. Both these exhibitions can be visited free till 22 November 2026. In addition, it mentions the Jesuit church Santa Maria Assunta.

 

The above image is from the Indonesian pavilion at the International school of Graphics in Venice. You can click on all the images of this post for a bigger view.

The third and last part of this diary is about the art exhibition in Palazzo Mora, the European Cultural Centre.

1. San Donà delle Rose Palace

This Palace located at 5038 Fondamenta Nove is hosting an exhibition called Fissures of Light - Diaspora: Dissonances in F# minor, including a group of artists from Guinea Equatorial. (Left: All the artists taking part in the exhibition at this palace)

The exhibition site includes different rooms and halls spread over 2 levels.

I am presenting some of the artworks which I liked in this exhibition, starting with a couple of artists from Guinea Equatorial.

Armando Abel Dyangani Mega, Guinea Equatorial: I will start with the artworks of Armando, whom I met and spoke to at the exhibition. He said, "I was born in Bata city where I studied initially and later went to Malabo. When I was 22, I came to study art in Salamanca, Spain. Since 2013, I live in Malabo in Guinea Equatorial." 

In the image below you can see Armando Abel Dyangani Mega with two of his artworks from this exhibition.

 

Fernando Nguema Medja, Guinea Equatorial: Fernando was a self-taught artist, who

learned sculpture from his uncle sculptor Antonio Edu, and he did carvings of traditional instruments, Balele masks and other arts of Fang tradition.

He lived for some time in Gabon, where he learned from Gabonese artist Obiang Djang. He died in 2008, when he was only 45 years old.

The image presents one of his artworks in the exhibition, which has a colourful traditional sculpture of the Fang people of Equatorial Guniea. 

Ibou Ndoye, Senegal: Born in Dakar, Senegal, Ibou is known for his mixed media art work and paintings. His art is known for the "perplexed faces" of street people and emigrant lives.

Ibou's grandmother was a tie-and-dye artist and his mother a dressmaker. Perhaps, that is why his artwork in this exhibition were painted fabrics, reminding about his background.

 

He graduated from the Fine Arts School of Dakar and spent time in Paris, France, before moving to the United States. He works with glass windows, canvases, carpets, and found objects. His work blends Senegalese traditions with modern abstraction to tell stories of everyday people and cultural identity.

Yasna Kohlbrenner Koko'Ya, Switzerland:  Originally from Basel (Switzerland), Koko'Ya wants to give voice to the voiceless through her art. 

 

She has presented her artworks in exhibitions in different parts of Africa including Nigeria and Democratic Republic of Congo. Many of her artworks presented in this exhibition also had strong African influence, such as the work shown in the image.

Rosa Mundi (Chiara Modica Donà dalle Rose), Italy: Rosa has grown up between Venice and Palermo (Sicily). She has studied art at Venice, Strasbourg and Paris. In 1993, she developed the Neo-Spatialism approach to art, following the pioneering work on Spatialism (use of space) by Argentinian-Italian sculptor-artist Lucio Fontana. According to Neo-spatialism, time does not exist but is only a human perception.

Light is a key element in the artwork created by Rosa. She does experimental installations, sculptures, paintings and photography, in a rich visual language. Over the past few years, she works mainly with marble, wood and terracotta. 

Her works in the exhibition include a double-sided Pinnochio, a marble sphere and a suitcase, shown in the image. She has created the Donà dalle Rose foundation. Her website provides more information about her.

Fulvio Merolli, Italy: Fulvio studied art in Rome and in Carrara. Since early 2000s, he is involved with an artistic collective called M'Arte Scultura. 

He is known for his monumental works displayed in public spaces as well as, for sacred spaces, especially in the Carrara marble.

In this exhibition, Fulvio has three artworks, all three in Carrara marble. The image below shows his artwork of a swimmer and the waves of water, all created with marble.

 

Martin Emschermann, Germany-Italy: Martin was born in Freiburg im Breisgau in Germany, studied art in Carrara, Italy and since 1990 lives in Palermo (Sicily, Italy), where he works as a sculptor. Over the past decades, he is known for his series of works on different themes.

For example, you can see his amazing sculptures of children made with iron and polyester resin and in partially maiolicated terracotta in his portfolio on his webpage. 

In this exhibition he has a few terracotta sculptures of children playing with soap bubbles that are absolutely amazing.  

2. The Jesuit Church

Coming out of the Donà delle Rose palazzo, I briefly stopped outside the Jesuit church dedicated to the ascension of St Mary (Santa Maria Assunta), which was originally built in 1128, while the present church building is from 1728.

At the top of the church is the marble sculpture of St Mary with the angels by Giuseppe Torretto while the front façade has the statues of the 12 apostles. Built by the crusaders, this church has many beautiful artworks including a painting by Tintoretto.

I was in a hurry and did not have the time to stop and visit the inside of this church. After the church my next stop was Palazzo Moro, but I am planning to write a full post dedicated to it, so I will proceed straight away to my last stop in Venice on this visit - the international school of Graphics in Calle Seconda del Cristo.

3. Indonesian Artists at the International School of Graphics

The first image of this post at the top shows one of the installations by an Indonesian artist, made like a well, that was supposed to collect rain water and whatever other materials wind brought to it.

The Indonesian exhibition was structured around an imaginary journey of Datu Na Tolu Hamonangan, the archivist of Harajaon Pusuk Buhit kingdom in 15th century Indonesia, from Lake Toba, to west Sumatra, to Malacca, passing from India and Egypt and reaching Venice. Incisions of different Indonesian artists are presented in this exhibition to depict this journey.

 

For example, the two images (above and below) are artworks of Agus Suwage using different materials and techniques such as linocut, water-colour and tobacco juice, present the journey in the east and in India.

 

The next image has oil portraits of imagined people he met during the journey and are by Ristyo Eko Hartanto.

 

In the End

I want to conclude this second part of my visit-diary with details of a sculpture by Martin Emschermann, that I liked very much.

 

The next, third and last, part of my visit diary  focuses on the artworks in Palazzo Mora. You may also like to read the first part of this diary to other art events in Cannaregio.

*****

Venice Biennale: Art in Cannaregio 01

Venice Art Biennale 2026 was inaugurated in May, but it was so hot during this summer that I kept on postponing my visit. Now, the temperatures have come down but I am troubled by knee pains.

In the end, I thought that I will go to see some of the collateral art events in Cannaregio, near the Venice Santa Lucia railway station, as it does not need too much walking.

Venice Art Biennale and most of the collateral events will be on till 20 November 2026. 

This is the first part of my visit-diary to collateral events of Venice Art Biennale in Cannaregio area of Venice. 

The image on the left shows the Church of Abbey of Compassion, my first stop on this Venice art-walk. (You can click on all the images for a bigger view) 

All the places that I visited during this visit had free entry. 

1. Art at the Church of Abbey of Compassion (Chiesa dell'Abbazia della Misericordia)

I started my walk with this ex-church (image above) that is used frequently for art exhibitions and events. The old church has a big hall with a beautiful ceiling painted in blue with stars.

There are two artists in this hall - Patty Toro Ribbeck from Santiago in Chilli and Keiko Yamagiwa from Tokyo, Japan.

Patty Toro Ribbeck 

Patty studied art in Florence. She explores the themes of identity, intimacy and sensuality, especially in terms of femminine sensibility through accessories made with ceramics. Originally trained as a designer, she teaches decorative ceramic painting and glass modelling.

 

Patty showed me a box with tiny ceramic works (image above) in different shapes that she had prepared for use with her work. She explained that the first step is to prepare these ceramic pieces, which she then colours and fixes them with a second oven-heating, and then uses them for making her art works.

 

For the exhibition in Venice, she has taken eye-glasses and converted each of them as an artwork by adding and fixing the tiny ceramic pieces in different shapes and colours to each frame (3 examples shown above - click for a bigger view). Thus, each of her artwork looked like a pair of eye-glasses expressing a specific femminine personality.

Keiko Yamagiwa 

Keiko is from Japan and she went to an art school in London, UK. Over the last years she is experimenting with performance-installations in which two persons enter a space created by a translucent black sheath and play with inter-relationships and intimacy created in that space. She experiments with locations and different shapes of the sheath, in which the spectators add an additional layer of relationship as they look at them from outside.

 

More recently, she has also experimented with these performance-installations by involving hundreds of persons covered under enormous black sheaths. In one such performance, she showed the picture in which the participants had raised their hands to hold the sheath in what seemed to be synchronised movement, without Keiko or anyone actually guiding this process.

You can see some of the Venetian experiences of these two artists, including some where they partecipate in each other's art on their Instagram pages - Patty & Keiko. 

2. Fallani Venezia Screen-Printing Workshop 

The Fallani Venezia workshop on Calle Lunga Santa Caterina, on my way to Fondamenta Nuova was not a part of Venice Biennale but as I was walking, I saw some beautiful prints inside and went inside to look at some of them.

It was an opportunity to talk to its owner Gianpaolo Fallani (in the picture with an artwork of Dario Fo) and learn about Serigraph Printing or the Silk-screen printing. It is a specialised way of making artistic prints. Gianpaolo explained to me that the first step is artist makes an artwork and brings to the workshop. A digital copy of that artwork is first made and a silk-screen (actually now they use a synthetic tissue instead of silk) is stretched and fixed on a wooden frame. Then a film with parts corresponding to each colour designed in black are put in front of the tissue-screen and exposed to strong light, so that the exposed parts become hard and the black parts remain soft, which is then washed. Thus, through this complicated process the silk/tissue screen is prepared with that artistic design which is then used make prints.

Gianpaolo explained that during the times of his father Fiorenzo Fallani many famous Italian artists such as Renato Guttuso, Salvatore Fiume, Emilio Vedova and Fabrizio Plessi, used to come to this workshop for their printing. Even today artists come there for their specialised printing. During my visit, he was busy working on an artwork made by an American artist. He also hosts artists for art-residencies so that they can find out the artistic possibilities of this screen-printing techniques. The webpage of the workshop has a large number of known names from the contemporary art world, including Gianpaolo Fallani himself.

In 2018, Gianpaolo Fallani received the Maestro d'Arte e Mestieri award (MAM - Master of Art and Crafts award) and his screen-printing laboratory is part of the "Diffused Museum of Paper and Prints" in Venice.

3. Fondamenta Nuove Theatre - David Cerny

My third stop was the Theatre, which is hosting an exhibition of the artworks of the Czech artist David Cerny.

Born in a family of artists in 1967, David studied art in Prague. He has won numerous awards including the most promising young Czech artist in 2000. In 2001, he launched a non-profit for contemporary art called Meetfactory and in 2017 he started Black n' Arch an architectural studio for innovative approaches to architecture and design. Apart from being an artist and architect, he is active in the areas of cinema and music.

He has different art works in the theatre, for me among them the most striking are three works -

(1) A sculpture of American President Donald Trump, sitting on a multi-coloured chair made of Lego-like pieces, his head bowed down, looking sad and thoughtful. He is shown wearing a half white and half dark suit, with one white shoe and the other dark, with his trademark magenta tie. 

(2) A wax sculpture of a dead man, lying on the floor among scattered pieces of glass, his eyes unseeing and open. Like Trump, he is also shown half real, with flesh and colours, and half white coloured mannequin.

 

(3) A film about the chimpanzee holding a human thigh bone and using it to playfully hit on other bones, including many skulls lying scattered in an area. It was as if a child was playing at the scene of a massacre.

All his different artworks are visually very striking and in a way disturbing. For example, looking at the man lying dead surrounded by broken glass, with his glazed eyes, looked so real that I was shocked.

In The End

This is the first part of the diary of my visit to art-events in Cannaregio area of Venice.

The second part will deal with some more smaller spaces, similar to the ones presented here, while the third part will be dedicated to the artworks in Palazzo Mora, the European Culture Centre.

The Venice Art Biennale is much more than this - apart from the numerous country pavilions which require an entry ticket, there are many other collateral events in other parts of Venice, which have free entry. My only problem is that I might need a knee-replacement to be able to look at all of them!

 

The last image of this post (above) has an overview of the hall hosting the David Cerny's installations. 

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Roberto Sperotto - A Passion for History

The Vicenza-Schio railway line completes 150 years in 2026. It was built in 1876 to facilitate transport of cargo from numerous wool mills of Schio. During early 1900s, this railway line had different extensions including to Pieve Bel Vicino, Piovene Rocchette, Arsiero and Asiago.

To celebrate this 150th anniversary, recently an exhibition was organised in Schio, which presented the historical collection of documents and photographs of Roberto Sperotto.

 

I had an opportunity to talk to Roberto to about his passion for the history of this region around late 1800s and early 1900s, especially related to the period of the first world war.

This post is about Roberto Sperotto and his passion for history.

Alto Vicentino and the World War One

The area around Vicenza is known as Vicentino. The north-west part of Vicentino has the Alps, specifically the Little Dolomites and is known as Alto Vicentino (High Vicentino) because of its higher altitude.

 

Till early 1900s, the Alps mountains of Alto Vicentino marked the border between the Austro-Hungarian empire and Italy. This border was the site of different battles during World War One.

For example, you can check my posts on the War Cemeteries of Alto Vicentino and on the Centenary of Pasubio War Memorial.

Talking to Roberto Sperotto

Roberto was born and lives in Breganze, some kms to the west of Schio, an area known for its beautiful rolling hills and vineyards. He runs an agency in Breganze for driving licences and their renewals.

Roberto's key interest has been in the crucial role, engineering skill, and heroic contributions of the Italian military engineering corps (Arma del Genio) during World War I, and he has been collecting documents and photographs about it in Alto Vicentino. His collection about the local railway lines is part of WWI collection, as the railways had played a big role in the war. 

 

About his archival collection about history of Alto Vicentino around the first World War, Roberto explained, "There was an old house in the periphery of Rocchette, and I discovered that it was one of the buildings of the Rocchette-Asiago railway line. I started reading about the old railway lines and gradually collected different documents and photographs to have a global view of these railway lines and its different aspects, in relation to the world war."

Initially all these railway lines to Schio and its extensions belonged to a private society, "Società Veneta", and were nationalised in 1906. Alessandro Rossi, well-known industrialist of Schio running different wool-mills in this area, played a key role in their construction.

Initially the railway lines were built in narrow gauge because they were near the border with the Austro-Hungarian empire and they felt that these could be used to attack them. Thus, the main Italian railway with its broad gauge could not be used to bring munitions and heavy machinery to the border.

Roberto took me around the exhibition, sharing anecdotes about how he had managed to collect different pictures and documents, how specific parts of the railway lines were built, how the railway lines were used during the war. For example, he explained that the Austrian troops were on a higher level and thus, the Italian army thought that they could have poisoned the water of the torrents coming down and thus, preferred to carry water up the railway line to Asiago.

Roberto's Archives in His Books 

Roberto has a big archive of documents & photographs about this region and has written 3 books about the history of Alto Vicentino during World War I - 

(1) 1915-1918 War Railway Lines in Vicentino (1915-1918 - Ferrovie di Guerra Nel Vicentino) - written with Francesco Brazzale, published by Edizioni Grafiche Leoni, 2014: The book starts with the difficulties caused by limited railway lines in this part of Italy when the war between Austria and Italy was declared in May 2015. A couple of images about the railway line in Schio from this book are presented below.  

(2) The War Villas - 6th Armed Division & Military Engineering Corps (Ville di Guerra - La 6a Armata e il Genio), published by Edizioni Grafiche Leoni, 2018: This book looks at the villas located along the old Gasparona road connecting Thiene to Marostica and their role in the World War One, and how these were taken over by the military commands during the war. This book focuses especially on the 6th Army which included Italian, French, British and Czechoslovakian troops. 

(3) The Ferrarin Cousins - Men and Pilots (I Cugini Ferrarin - Uomini e Piloti), written with Roberto Mantiero, published by Grafiche Leoni sas, 2020: This book shares documents and pictures of Italian air-force pilots during the WWI, especially Francesco Ferrarin & Arturo Ferrarin, along with others like Leonello Marani, Girolamo Allegri,  Luigi Bourlot. The book also touches on the role of the well-known Italian writer, poet and Journalist, Gabriele d'Annunzio in the war.

Historical Images of Schio from the Book by Roberto Sperotto

Roberto's books are a rich source of historical images and documents from that period. As an example, two images from Sperotto's book "1915-1918 - Ferrovie di Guerra Nel Vicentino" are presented below, which are about the railway station of Schio.

(1) The first is an illustration about the visit of Prince Umberto in Schio for the inauguration of the Vicenza-Schio railway line in 1876. (click on the image for a bigger view)

 

(2) The second is an image of families leaving Schio as the first world war broke out in the nearby Pasubio mountains in Spring 1916.

World War One - A British Postcard

The next two images from the Roberto Sperotto's collection are of a picture-postcard of the Schio railway station sent home to one "Mrs Arnold" by an English soldier, dated 12 Nov 1918 by the war field office, on which the military sensor had cancelled the word "Schio", so that the location is not revealed. (Click on the images for a bigger view)

 

This same image was also used on the poster for the exhibition held in Schio for the 150th anniversary of the Vicenza-Schio railway line. 
 

In Conclusion

Roberto shows that persons moved by their passions can be an invaluable resource for collecting and safeguarding the micro-histories of small places, that are usually ignored by official historians and record-keepers working at international, national and regional levels.  

For the persons of Alto Vicentino, Roberto's photographic and documental archives are a wonderful resource about a crucial period of their local history.  

 *****