A Sailor’s Bride
One month fellowship in Venice with the British Council,
part of the Venice Architecture Biennale 2023.
part of the Venice Architecture Biennale 2023.
During my residency I wrote a spoken word poem - A Sailor’s Bride - based on contemporary and historical accounts of living in Venice; exploring the relationship between public and private spaces in context to: housing, community, tourism and the poetry of Veronica Franco (the 16th century Venetian courtesan).
I also conducted: The Blindfold Parade - a 45 minute blindfolded walk through the city. Part somatic research and part performance, this was an exploration of physicality within the public space, and an attempt to experience the deep pulse of the city beyond its visual beauty.
I also conducted: The Blindfold Parade - a 45 minute blindfolded walk through the city. Part somatic research and part performance, this was an exploration of physicality within the public space, and an attempt to experience the deep pulse of the city beyond its visual beauty.
Moving through the city, seen but not seeing, a public exhibition, a secret sensuality, embodying the duality of this mystic place. This was an exercise of trust - trust in your senses, trust in each step, trust in the world around you. And this is an exercise in touch - the touch of fumbling fingers on a crumbling wall, steadying; the light touch of a hand on your back, guiding; the warming touch of sunlight on your skin, soothing. This is also an exercise in listening - communicating with subtle gestures, a hand pushes you on, stops you here, a slight inclination this way or that, the strength of pressure, the pulse and urgency, measuring your step. But most of all this is an exercise of place, because what else is Venice but beauty?
I performed A Sailor’s Bride at the Multimedial Laboratory Art Conservation and created a video which combined the poem and footage from the Blindfold Parade. Watch video here:
A Sailor’s Bride
Sixteen hundred summers past she sprang from the waters,
Dripping in the silks and jewels of the orient, flaunting it,
She was a sailor’s bride. Her opal eyes bright and wide,
Oceanic depths cast up to the skies - what a prize,
The merchant’s pride. She held all the gold of Christendom.
And all the world came to see her in her shining glory,
A public woman, sensual and courtly, unruly and gaudy,
Oh and the things they called her. She was angel and witch,
Virgin and whore. Salacious, loquacious, corrupt and adored;
Yet she was always a maiden city, she was never conquered.
Venice stands alone. A surreal utopian existence, so mystic,
It’s easy to think that she shouldn’t exist at all. Tell me is it -
Messing with the natural order building a city where there’s only water?
This is the shoreline of unsure time, a provocation of beauty
Where imagination is fascinated by crossroads of contradiction.
And she takes time to get to know, her ways are strange and bold,
She is ambiguous duality, a matrimony of arabesque and portico,
Her palaces adorned like courtesans. Roads of water and alleyways so close
She is like a protective mother. But whether meagre wife or happy harlot
her most precious jewels are hidden, her inner sanctum, saved only for the faithful to see.
But listen, Venice is drowning. And when I’m walking
It’s more like swimming in a river of people gawping and gaping,
A city so full can be isolating. The houses are flooded with tourist rentals,
And all of the prices are going mental. While empty flats are left to rot,
Cause no one wants to pay the maintenance costs.
Dificile belleza, it’s a high price paid to keep her floating,
Holding up her skirts to keep them from soaking in the rising water.
Patched and buttressed, she costs a fortune. This ageing beauty,
Suspended in time between sky and sea, tell me what else can she really be
But a global curiosity? A paradox of complexity the citizens ask ceaselessly.
But is she really lost to the crowds and cacophony? Blinded by beauty
Has she become her own allegory? Just shipwrecked and living off flattery.
Or maybe malefica hides in this masque of pageantry, and this land
Of magic and mystery still walks along the Fondamente, at 3am
When it is empty, and you are alone in Venice.
Sixteen hundred summers past she sprang from the waters,
Dripping in the silks and jewels of the orient, flaunting it,
She was a sailor’s bride. Her opal eyes bright and wide,
Oceanic depths cast up to the skies - what a prize,
The merchant’s pride. She held all the gold of Christendom.
And all the world came to see her in her shining glory,
A public woman, sensual and courtly, unruly and gaudy,
Oh and the things they called her. She was angel and witch,
Virgin and whore. Salacious, loquacious, corrupt and adored;
Yet she was always a maiden city, she was never conquered.
Venice stands alone. A surreal utopian existence, so mystic,
It’s easy to think that she shouldn’t exist at all. Tell me is it -
Messing with the natural order building a city where there’s only water?
This is the shoreline of unsure time, a provocation of beauty
Where imagination is fascinated by crossroads of contradiction.
And she takes time to get to know, her ways are strange and bold,
She is ambiguous duality, a matrimony of arabesque and portico,
Her palaces adorned like courtesans. Roads of water and alleyways so close
She is like a protective mother. But whether meagre wife or happy harlot
her most precious jewels are hidden, her inner sanctum, saved only for the faithful to see.
But listen, Venice is drowning. And when I’m walking
It’s more like swimming in a river of people gawping and gaping,
A city so full can be isolating. The houses are flooded with tourist rentals,
And all of the prices are going mental. While empty flats are left to rot,
Cause no one wants to pay the maintenance costs.
Dificile belleza, it’s a high price paid to keep her floating,
Holding up her skirts to keep them from soaking in the rising water.
Patched and buttressed, she costs a fortune. This ageing beauty,
Suspended in time between sky and sea, tell me what else can she really be
But a global curiosity? A paradox of complexity the citizens ask ceaselessly.
But is she really lost to the crowds and cacophony? Blinded by beauty
Has she become her own allegory? Just shipwrecked and living off flattery.
Or maybe malefica hides in this masque of pageantry, and this land
Of magic and mystery still walks along the Fondamente, at 3am
When it is empty, and you are alone in Venice.
Footage & Photo credits: Rosie May Jones, Christopher Apperley-Bennett & Joshua Smith
The Blindfold Parade performed by: Rosie May Jones & Marta Magini