Past

20 May – 26 November 2023, _docks_cantieri cucchini

A Fragile Correspon­dence

The  Scotland + Venice partnership is delighted to announce that A Fragile Correspondence is one of the collateral events for the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia at the Arsenale Docks, S. Pietro di Castello, Venice. Curated by the Architecture Fringe, -ism, and /other, A Fragile Correspondence responds to Biennale curator Lesley Lokko’s theme of The Laboratory of the Future.

 

About the Exhibition
Team image by Matthew Arthur Williams. The creative team – from left to right: Amy McEwan, Aoife Nolan, Carl Jonsson, Neil McGuire, Mia Pinder-Hussein, Kristina Enberg, Alissar Riachi, Alyesha Choudhury and Andy Summers. Representing each collective is: Neil McGuire and Andy Summers for the Architecture Fringe, Kristina Enberg, Amy McEwan, Aoife Nolan, Alissar Riachi for ism magazine, and Alyesha Choudhury, Carl C.Z. Jonsson and Mia Pinder-Hussein for /other (pronounced: slash other).
Representatives of Architecture Fringe, ism magazine and slash other stand in a high ceilinged, light filled room

Scotland + Venice 2022 for the 59th International Art Exhibition

23 April – 27 November 2022, Docks Cantieri Cucchini

Alberta Whittle

Alberta Whittle’s commission of new work is representing Scotland as a collateral event at the 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia at the Arsenale Docks, S. Pietro di Castello. The project is commissioned by the Scotland + Venice Partnership and is a multi-partner project initiated by Glasgow International and supported by Glasgow Life through Tramway. This is the tenth presentation commissioned by the Scotland + Venice partnership continuing to build Scotland’s strength and reputation as an important international voice in visual art and architecture.

Recognised as one of the world’s most prestigious festivals of contemporary art, the 2022 edition of La Biennale di Venezia will take place from 23 April – 27 November 2022.

About the Exhibition
Alberta Whittle by Matthew A Williams

Scotland + Venice 2021 for the 17th International Architecture Exhibition

22 May – 21 November 2021, V&A Dundee

What if…?/ Scotland

What if…?/Scotland responds to the Biennale’s theme How will we live together?, seeking to re-engage the civic role of architects and designers by asking citizens from across Scotland to share their hopes and dreams for the future of the places they call home. 7N paired 25 people from 5 places across Scotland with 25 designers, architects, and artists – to share their hopes and dreams for the future of the place where they live. The architects and designers then used these wishes to begin exploring imaginative ideas in response to the community challenges being faced.

About the Exhibition
Participants in Annan workshop, collaborating with Beautiful Materials to explore the High Street. Image by Bash Art Creative

Scotland + Venice 2019 for the 58th International Art Exhibition

11 May – 20 November 2019, Arsenale Docks

Charlotte Prodger

In 2019, the Scotland + Venice partnership presented SaF05, a new single-channel video by 2018 Turner Prize-winning artist Charlotte Prodger. SaF05 is named after a maned lioness that figures in the work as a cipher for queer attachment and desire. This animal is the last of several maned lionesses documented in the Okavango Delta and is only known to Prodger through a database of behaviours and camera-trap footage logged across several years. These indexes of SaF05’s existence are intersected with autobiographical fragments from Prodger’s own life that fluctuate between proximity and distance.

About the Exhibition
Still from SaF05, courtesy of the artist

Scotland + Venice 2018 for the 16th International Architecture Exhibition

22 May – 17 November 2018, Palazzo Zenobio

The Happen­stance

The Happenstance was Scotland + Venice response to Grafton Architects theme of Freespace. In the garden of Palazzo Zenobio, WAVEparticle curated an active archive around a boardwalk-cum-climbing frame designed by Baxendale. The Happenstance engaged with people of all ages, encouraging everyone into a vital relationship with the built environment through adding to the structure and staging their own events (over 60), demonstrating and gathering what can be built using play as an active agent within the process of rethinking and reclaiming Freespace. Elements of The Happenstance were exhibited in Scotland along with a series of aligned events.

About the Exhibition
WAVEparticle

Scotland + Venice 2017 for the 57th International Art Exhibition

13 May – 26 November 2017, Chiesa di Santa Caterina

Rachel Maclean

Rachel Maclean represented Scotland at the 57th International Art Exhibition, the Venice Biennale, which ran from 13 May to 26 November 2017, with major new film commission Spite Your Face. Curated by Alchemy Film and Arts, in partnership with Talbot Rice Gallery and the University of Edinburgh, Maclean’s modern-day, dark Venetian fairytale was presented as a large-scale portrait projection at the altar of the deconsecrated church, Chiesa di Santa Caterina, Cannaregio.

About the Exhibition

Scotland + Venice 2016 for the 15th International Architecture Exhibition

1 January, Ludoteca Santa Maria Ausiliatrice

Prospect North

Prospect North delivered an interactive exhibition exploring 15 community projects throughout Scotland and Scotland’s relationship with its northern neighbours with a focus on people and place. A micro to macro approach delivered a series of innovative mapping strategies, individual narratives, portraits and evocative imagery, highlighting Scotland’s place and identity within an economically emerging northern region. It then toured to three major venues in Scotland and to the Arctic Circle conference in Reykjavik. A smaller version was produced to tour to communities in Scotland.

About the Exhibition
Prospect North
Art installation in a religious building

Scotland + Venice 2015 for the 56th International Art Exhibition

9 May – 22 November 2015, Palazzo Fontana

Graham Fagen

Graham Fagen represented Scotland at the 56th International Art Exhibition, the Venice Biennale, running from 9 May to 22 November 2015, in a solo presentation commissioned and curated by Hospitalfield, Arbroath.

In 2016, Fagen reinterpreted the body of work originally conceived for the four noble rooms of Palazzo Fontana. In Arbroath the exhibition of sculpture, drawing and moving image was installed, with some changes and additions, in to the lovely and various historic Arts & Crafts rooms of Hospitalfield House. The exhibition ran from 19 March until 17 April 2016 with a series of events focused around the start and end of the show.

About the Exhibition

Scotland + Venice 2014 for the 14th International Architecture Exhibition

1 September – 1 October 2014, Ludoteca Santa Maria Ausiliatrice and Giardini

Past + Future

Curated by Reiach and Hall, Past + Future saw four groups research modernity in Scotland. In response to the theme Absorbing Modernity 1914-2014, Scotland + Venice was concerned with undertaking fragments of research, aimed primarily at opening up debate within Scotland about what a modern architecture was and what it might be? A series of publication were distributed in Venice and Scotland. Past + Future continue the event-based approach that established itself as the hallmark of a distinctive Scottish presence in Venice during the Architecture Biennale.  A series of events were also run in Scotland on its return.

About the Exhibition
Past + Future
A group of people sitting down watching a presentation

Scotland + Venice 2013 for the 55th International Art Exhibition

1 June – 1 June 2013, Palazzo Pisani

Sworn, Campbell, Tompkins

Scotland + Venice 2013 is an exhibition of new works by Corin Sworn, Duncan Campbell and Hayley Tompkins, three of the most consistently interesting artists working in Scotland today, presented by The Common Guild in the Palazzo Pisani (S. Marina).

About the Exhibition
‘Digital Light Pool (Orange)’, 2013 Acrylic on plastic trays, stock photographs, wooden boxes, glass, plastic bottles, watercolour. Installation view ‘Scotland + Venice 2013: Sworn / Campbell / Tompkins’. Commissioned by The Common Guild for Scotland + Venice 2013. Courtesy of the Artist and The Modern Institute/ Toby Webster Ltd, Glasgow. Photograph by Ruth Clark

Scotland + Venice 2012 for the 13th International Architecture Exhibition

1 June – 1 June 2012, Ludoteca Santa Maria Ausiliatrice and Venice wide

Critical Dialogues

Curated by Jonathan Charlie, Critical Dialogues saw four Glasgow-based practices created a Scottish ‘studio’ in Venice to explore the social role of the architect and the creative boundaries of architecture. Organised as a week-long series of events that took place within the public realm, Critical Dialogues was planned as a sequence of actions that engaged with overlooked and marginalised places and social organisations. Each practice developed a methodological tool kit that was adaptable and playful, so that in principle any one of the projects could be transferred and repeated in other locations.

About the Exhibition
Stone Opera
A structure made of cardboard being made by people in high vis

Scotland + Venice 2011 for the 54th International Art Exhibition

2 June – 27 November 2011, Palazzo Pisani

Karla Black

Hovering between energy and mass in nine rooms of the Palazzo Pisani (S. Marina) is a solo exhibition of brand new ‘almost objects’ by the Scottish artist Karla Black. Intimately and painstakingly worked in situ into exquisitely detailed aesthetic forms, a still raw vastness of pure material and colour fills this 15th century Venetian palace. These abstract sculptures – pulverised, atomised, piled, layered, supported, suspended and spilled out onto the floor – offer a visceral experience of absorption in the material world. The artist’s professed love of powders, pastes, creams, oils and gels is in evidence here.

About the Exhibition
Karla Black, Installation view Curated by Fruitmarket Gallery for Scotland + Venice 2011 Photograph by Gautier Deblonde

Scotland + Venice 2010 for the 12th International Architecture Exhibition

1 November, Ludoteca Santa Maria Ausiliatrice

To Have and to Hold

The premier of Murray Grigor’s Space and Light Revisited was presented as a split screen film of St Peter’s Seminary –  the original film shot in 1972 as working seminary and a recreated shot-for-shot in 2009 as a ruin. NVA’s To Have and to Hold round table discussion enabled a high level of international engagement and marked a step change in developing a strong and distinctive Scottish presence and the many potential benefits through an engagement-based approach rather than pre-prepared exhibitions.

About the Exhibition
An exhibition featuring wooden panels with photography of landscapes on them

Scotland + Venice 2009 for the 53th International Art Exhibition

7 June – 22 November 2009, Palazzo Pisani

Martin Boyce

Curated by Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA), Martin Boyce’s acclaimed solo exhibition No Reflections was commissioned by Scotland and Venice in 2009. Martin Boyce is one of Scotland’s most prominent artists and is well-known for his sculptural installations that recall conventional public spaces. Imagining an abandoned garden in the fading grandeur of a 15th century Palazzo, Boyce placed groupings of the newly commissioned works in the Palazzo’s seven interconnected rooms – suspended aluminium trees, scattered wax paper leaves, raised stepping stones, a wooden bird box, tables and benches. Drawing on the inner city landscape of Venice, Boyce conflated the internal and external, creating a heightened sense of displacement and abandonment. The works were subsequently reconfigured for the modern, award-winning galleries of DCA as part of our 10th birthday celebrations.

About the Exhibition
Martin Boyce, Installation view. Curated by Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA) for Scotland + Venice 2009. Photograph by Gilmar Ribeiro

Scotland + Venice 2008 for the 11th International Architecture Exhibition

1 June – 1 June 2008, Piazzale della Stazione Santa Maria

A Gathering Space

Sited outside the main railway station opposite the Grand Canal, the 7m-high wooden structure created from sustainable materials, including Scots larch, showcased Scottish design and construction. It provided a temporary public forum for debate and discussion and  invited visitors to sit, pause and contemplate, and from the top offered a new perspective on the city A Gathering Space was the focus of a number of debates including New Regionalism in Architecture, Architecture Beyond Building, Architecture and Landscape and Transforming the urban landscape.

About the Exhibition
A Gathering Place
Large wooden structure with steps and people walking over

Scotland + Venice 2005 for the 50th International Art Exhibition

12 June – 6 November 2005

Selective Memory

Glasgow-based artists, Alex Pollard, Joanne Tatham & Tom O’Sullivan and Cathy Wilkes were chosen to represent Scotland at the 2005 event in an exhibition entitled Selective Memory. In the exhibition, curators Jason E Bowman and Rachel Bradley explored the notion of artistic labour and the process of making art.

About the Exhibition
Joanne Tatham + Tom O’Sullivan

Scotland + Venice 2004 for the 11th International Architecture Exhibition

1 May – 1 October 2004, Arsenale

Landforms

Landforms exhibition presented 16 keynote architectural projects completed since the formation of the Scottish Parliament in 1999. The Biennale theme of Metamorph is of particular relevance to Scotland in showing how architecture both reflects and acts as a catalyst for political and cultural change. The projects reflected the variety of contemporary architecture emerging from the numerous Scottish landscapes and ranged from the Scottish Parliament by Catalan architect Enric Miralles and Benedetta Tagliabue Miralles, and in partnership with Scottish practice RMJM to An Turas on Tiree by Sutherland Hussey. The exhibition toured to Scotland, Spain, France and the Netherlands.

About the Exhibition
NORD, Landforms
Large exhibition space in an old building

Scotland + Venice 2003 for the 49th International Art Exhibition

13 June – 2 November 2003, Palazzo Giustinian-Lolin

Zenomap

The exhibition showed works specially commissioned from the three artists in a magnificent venue comprising five majestic rooms in the 17th century Palazzo Giustinian-Lolin, overlooking the Grand Canal near the Accademia bridge. Alongside the main exhibition a screening and events programme ran in a more contemporary venue (a school gym), a few minutes’ walk away from the exhibition venue, in Dorsoduro in the opening week of the Biennale.

This programme of live events, performances and screenings included newly commissioned work from a wide range of artists including Dave Allen, Katy Dove, Graham Fagen, Luke Fowler, Rob Kennedy, Torsten Lauschmann, Rosalind Nashashibi, Stephen Sutcliffe, Joanne Tatham and Tom O’Sullivan.

About the Exhibition
Luke Fowler

Scotland + Venice 1990 for the 44th International Art Exhibition

30 April

Tre Scultori Scozzesi

In 1990 for the first, and so far only time, Scotland was part of the official Venice Biennale, featured in the Giardini as a country in its own right along with 39 other nations. At the invitation of the Biennale director Giovanni Carandente, three sculptors, David Mach, Arthur Watson & Kate Whiteford were given prominent place at the heart of the Giardini, across a huge prime open air site right at the Biennale entrance. Tre Scultori Scozzesi were impossible to miss and made an unforgettable impression.

The director himself wrote that he “considered this exhibition one among the most important events of the 44th International.”

About the Exhibition
Kate Whiteford, David Mach, Arthur Watson; 1990.