in Venice is happiness enough.
A feast for the senses with a surprise encounter to challenge the tourist.
A Walk to the Beach
Nearby, a bell tower chimes. From our third floor window, our neighbours are no more than two metres away across the street. A friendly smile and ‘Buongiorno’ greets us most days. We lock our apartment with the huge old key, turning the lock twice, clunk, clunk!
Off to the beach - blue sky, warm sunshine!
Centuries of foot traffic have worn down the stone stairs, the vagaries of natural stone mean the treads now have unique curves and characteristics. Rounded and misshapen, I have become aware of which ones to be careful with; third step on the second floor the worst, sloping towards the middle, slippery and cracked, so easy to loose your footing.
Our street, Calle Erizzo, has four floors of apartments on either side. The buildings are, shoulder to shoulder, close and cozy. Exteriors give away there age, rich in textures; various ochre coloured stuccos appear thin or flaking away, exposing the brickwork beneath. The bricks themselves show the signs of deterioration, some having crumbled and weathered to form concave patterns between the mortar joints. Bits and pieces of repairs, bricked in old openings, obsolete pipes and rusting metal objects, all add up to read as a document of time and history. You could pencil in the stains and marks of human use; graffiti residue, poster remnants, delivery barrow scrapes and the like.
We turn right, walking along the cobblestones, past old timber doors many with beautiful metal door-knockers. Windows have timber shutters and up high lines for drying washing. The sound of people walking and talking echoes to even the highest floors. One of the joys of pedestrian only traffic is that people seem to talk more and even sing as they go from place to place. Jill once had a man sing romantic operatic pieces to her in a beautiful tenor voice as we walked along. He did this to any woman he encountered, somewhat fuelled from a long lunch, but that’s another story.
Walking under the Sotoportego that joins the buildings forming an underpass a glance up sees hand hewn wooden beams, and then passing under an arch we turn right into Calle de Olio. On the wall set into the render and brickwork is a stone plaque looking as though it has been through a fire. Two crouching figures hold a shield; a winged lion peers over the top, clasping the sides. The plaque is divided into quadrants, each being plain, just a weathered black colour. I assume each quadrant would have originally had a painted design, probably signifying the family whose house it sits on or the Castello district within which it is built. The winged lion is the Christian symbol of St Mark, one used throughout the city, commemorating the saint whose remains now lie in the Basilica Di San Marco.
Venice has many such references for those with a keen eye. I am particularly on the lookout for one that refers to a miracle around 1630 where residents of a small enclave prayed consistently to paintings of saints displayed by a young girl named Giovanna, in an effort to protect themselves from the plague epidemic that took something like fifty thousand Venetians to their deaths. It was said to have worked. The enclave was spared. To commemorate, a red marble stone has been laid within the paving. Walking over it is believed to bring good luck.
Just a few steps and we come to Salizada San Francesco, a small shopping street. A couple of bars on our left are doing a good morning trade and we venture into one for a quick espresso coffee. Friendly, aromatic, just standing at the bar, we are on our way in no time. The ‘Frutta & Verdura’ shop has its produce on tables pushing out onto the street. I smile and wave as I had been in just yesterday afternoon buying ingredients to accompany the gnocchi we made for dinner, ‘Buongiorno’! Fresh potato gnocchi came from a shop just on the other side of the street. A lovely young girl serving just asked, ‘for how many’? Then she scooped from a big bowl on the counter the right amount into a paper bag. It was melt in your mouth delicious!
Castello shopkeepers love to put their merchandise out on the street, a Footwear Shop and Art Supplies/Haberdashery shop on either side of the street almost meet in the middle. We come to the bakery, always tempting … have to at least inspect the window display. Beetroot and walnut rolls, honey cake as well as sourdough breads. As if that’s not tempting enough next door is ‘Al Canton del Vin’, a wine shop with barrels in a line. A shop for the connoisseur, not open at the present time but full of tasters yesterday when I passed.
At the intersection with Calle del Morian a barrow fruit seller sits in the shade of a tall stone and brick boundary wall. A long thin metal bracket to stabilize the corner stones is notable for its graffiti, ‘CASTEO ANTI FASCISTA’, meaning the Castello district is anti fascist. Added to this is scrawled, ‘yesterday, today, tomorrow’. I’m not sure if it refers to local politics of the now or a reference to Italy’s 20th century Mussolini regime… possibly both.
On the corner looking down benevolently into the Salizada, with shoppers and pedestrians coming and going, is a white statue of the Virgin Mary. Perched on top of the wall, colourful plastic flowers encircle her feet. We continue straight ahead and up a few steps for a bridge over a small canal that is just wide enough for small boats and water taxis. Washing hangs on lines that span the canal up high catching the sun and breeze. The building line plunges straight down into the water; barnacles and algae mark the high tide line. Gondoliers’ don’t ply these parts as it’s too far from the centre. A landing platform adjoins a small square where a stone monument has a carving of two forearms crossed. The area is an enclave of the Franciscan order; the arms are symbols for Jesus and St Francis.
On the other side of the square a row of substantial columns support a covered walkway called a ‘cavalcavia’. Morning sunshine casts strong shadows and in the shade sits two young men dressed in track pants and t-shirts. Fashion bags neatly arranged in rows surround them looking totally out of place.
‘Buongiorno’! I say, stopping for a hopeful chat. ‘Where are you from’?
‘Somalia … you know’?
‘Yeah yeah, Africa right’!
‘East Africa, where are you from’?
‘Australia’
‘oorr long way yeah’!
This I have discovered is a common response across many nationalities in Europe. I am impressed these two young guys speak English so well; mind you Somalia was both a British and Italian colony up until 1960. War-torn still, in part over its border with Ethiopia, resulting from British concessions at the time of Independence.
‘Somalia very good at football’, I say, and two faces break into smiles. As I continue,
‘Like, Somalia did okay at the world cup, much better than Australia’.
‘No man! Somalia didn’t even make it to the World Cup’ … a pause, then, ‘Do you know Lionel Messi’?
‘Yes’ I answer, not really able to elaborate.
‘Cristiano Ronaldo’?
‘Yes’. This is possibly going to end badly as it is obvious I have been exaggerating my knowledge of football just a little for the sake of conversation. Now I am being tested on well-known players.
‘Neymar’?
‘Yeah’.
Next came a name I couldn’t recognize or even repeat, ‘Umm, No’ I said, ready to admit defeat.
My questioner points to his mate and says, ‘that’s him’! At which point they both roll about in fits of laugher.
This comedic episode prompts me to think of these guys as modern day ‘Merchants of Venice’. Maybe in a contemporary interpretation of Shakespeare’s play they could be cast as those in need of money and Shylock the Jewish moneylender could be played instead by a corrupt politician like the officials who have siphoned money from the flood barrier project causing it to stall for years. A ‘Pound of Flesh’, no more, no less, would still apply unless the Somalia refugees were prepared to trade their replica ‘Dolce & Gabbana’ bags instead.
‘Okay guys we had better go, gotta get to the beach, see you later’!
We are in Campo della Confratrenita, a long paved open space that runs along the side of the impressive church, San Francesco della Vigna. It dates from the mid 13th century when Franciscan monks built a gothic church on the site of an old vineyard. Over the years it has been rebuilt and reconfigured many times to become the Renaissance beauty it is today. Turning left to view the front façade, we look up to admire what resembles an ancient all white temple, beautifully proportioned and perfectly symmetrical. Four tall columns hold the triangular pediment with its big eagle relief and on each side half pediments completes the harmony. In niches either side of the entrance portico two bronze statues, one of Moses, the other St Paul, begin to articulate the Christian story. Designed by Andrea Palladio in 1564 it is a familiar design - cliché even, by virtue of its many reproductions around the world, the origin of the terms ‘classic’ and ‘Palladian’. You really feel like you are in the presence of greatness!
Along the right periphery past terracotta colour rendered walls warm in the sun, the church side entrance has a small plaque with dates of construction and a list of interior artist works, Bellini, Tintoretto, Veronese and Tiepolo, just some. My goodness, stepping inside will be like an art history lesson. Jill tugging my shirtsleeve reminds me it will have to wait till tomorrow, as there is likely to be a queue for the beach.
Past the old school of San Pasquale, now a library with an important collection of antique books, preserved for Italian speaking scholars. I can only allow my imagination the delights of leather, parchment, maps and ink. We come to Calle Cimitero; walls either side so close that we can only walk single file. To our left up high is the campanile, a landmark for the area and the source of our early morning chimes. I have noticed that it is not plumb, maybe four to five degrees off vertical. At nearly seventy metres tall the lean is more obvious than smaller buildings. Venice has been slowly sinking, and what with increasing floods due to rising sea level (acqua alta), one can assume a lot of foundations all over the city are compromised.
A cacophony of children’s voices comes from within one of the three storied buildings. On the ground floor an elementary school by the sounds, plenty of activities and excitement. Suddenly we are in an open square, Campo Della Celestria, apartments on all sides, narrow streets lead off each corner. Some young mums sit and chat under a rare small tree in the middle whilst their toddlers and dog chase a ball. It is down one street off the campo that we see what looks like a line of people.
We have walked less than two hundred metres from our apartment … almost at the beach! Sauntering up to join the queue, it is still thirty minutes before opening. The line in front is about twenty metres long before it turns right around a corner. Jill wanders ahead to investigate. It is not just a beach we are going to, but also an opera. You might think something like a Monteverdi or some such, but no, this is a new opera, ‘Sun & Sea (Marina)’, from Lithuania. It won the Golden Lion award at this Venice Biennale. An art experience performed in an old navel warehouse turned into a beach. The opera is ‘durational’ meaning the audience arrives for a suggested twenty-minute viewing, and then leaves, as the performance cycles throughout the day. Good news for those deep in the queue!
‘About thirty metres long once around the corner’ Jill reports back.
‘Just as well we came as early as we did’ as I glance behind and notice more people arriving - must be a ferry just in.
‘They let seventy in at first, then only as people leave’.
‘We might be in the first seventy’?
‘Don’t think so, looks like a bit of queue jumping going on at the front’
Two women in front of us turn and join the discussion.
‘Yeah I read online the queues can be hours long, like three or more’, says an American. Her German friend finishes the sentence, ‘yes and there have been reports of heated arguments’.
We all seem to agree on the uncomfortable truth on this aspect of human behaviour.
Swapping tips for other Biennale venues they mention the controversy of the ill fated, battered and dilapidated boat now installed on a dock by Swiss artist Christoph Buchel. The old fishing boat left a Libyan beach bound for Italy crammed with seven hundred illegal immigrants in April 2015. At night, floundering in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, the inexperienced crew collided with a large cargo ship that had come to its rescue. The boat overturned and sank; all but twenty-eight persons perished. Why resurrect the boat and call this art is the question? To make us feel uneasy, to stir our conscience?
I think of our Somalia football acquaintances … refugees have always been part of Venetian life. It was how the city was founded in a sense; with the collapse of the Roman Empire, survivors of barbarian plunder sought refuge on small muddy islands and marshlands off the mainland in the 5th century. Those islands would eventually join to become a unique collective, a republic of free citizens: the lagoon city of Venice.
People fleeing conflict has continually created an ebb and flow of refugees to the lagoon, the Lombards in 1162, Byzantine Greeks from Constantinople and Jews from the Spanish Inquisition in the 15th century. In the early 20th century Armenians fleeing persecution from the Turks and in the 1990’s refugees from the Balkan wars are but some!
A sign indicates that beyond the wall where we are standing is ‘Zona Militare’. If you could fly up and look over you would see a vast navel yard, replete with modern submarines and small warships. It occupies what was once a massive shipbuilding centre simply called Arsenale. By the 13th century Venice was a powerful city state ruling over vast parts of the Eastern Mediterranean, Crete, Cyprus, parts of Greece and the Adriatic coastline, and Constantinople. It was also the time of expeditions travelling further east looking for trade; Marco Polo possibly walked these very streets.
A single bell chimes the hour … the queue moves slowly forward, we round the corner … then stop, about ten metres from the entrance. Looking up it appears to be washing day, as we are surrounded by everything from sheets to underwear. Talk about airing your linen! Ingenious pulley systems allow washing to be moved across the street or along the sides of the buildings. The secret is really substantial pegs; we too have been using them outside our apartment. A chiseled lintel stone is dated MDCXXXXIII (1643); an inscription mentions homes for industrious workers, ‘casa per il popolo’. For centuries these three and four storied apartments have been homes for the thousands of shipyard workers.
The nod from security releases all that excitement built up whilst waiting, we enter the compound and walk through the navel yard, a view across to a building encircled harbour, and then to a nondescript warehouse where we climb stairs to a mezzanine level. In semi-darkness people stand in silence around a railing peering down to a brightly lit space as you might in a theatre. It is the beach!
It looks crowded. Sand covers the entire ground floor. A busy summer day, lots of towels and rugs marking territory, beachgoers of all ages lie or sit in swimsuits or casual clothes. Items of relaxation and play are scattered around, drinks, newspapers, books, card games, even a badminton set. A dog wanders around. A boy plays with his toy boat in a small wading pool. Two identical female twins snuggle together; an elderly couple shares a towel, a young women in a brief pink bikini sunbakes with her tattooed body art for all to see. We the audience are silent witnesses, invisible to the performers.
A low pitch melody line is audible. Singers from Lithuania and Venice appear to be just a cross section of real people on holiday at the beach. As you concentrate on the English libretto you realize it is mostly common talk, ‘Pass the sunscreen darling’. The vacationers sing their stories; an aria like internal monologue, others with a chorus of voices. There is no connecting narrative.
The whole beach is the stage as performers sing from where ever they happen to be, moving from time to time as their needs dictate or exit as if to go for a swim and then return. The individuals or groups are strangers, as though preoccupied with their own existence. Some like the overworked office worker are full of anxiety,
‘I finally learned to stay calm,
Not to take my state of mind home.’ 1
Another song has a wealthy family bragging about how many world beaches their children have experienced (bucket list!) and how nice it was to have a Pina Colada served underwater whilst diving on the Great Barrier Reef, as two photographers captured it for them. The operatic theme is one of ridicule toward jet-setting sun-seekers.
In the tradition of opera tragedy other songs reference unpredictable weather events, oceans with bleached coral forests and floating plastic gyres,
‘Rose-colored dresses flutter:
Jellyfish dance along in pairs –
With emerald-coloured bags,
Bottles and red bottle-caps.
O the sea never had so much colour’! 1
Human existence is entangled with the natural world.
’What is wrong with people who come with dogs and leave shit on the beach’, gives a hint of some concern toward human behaviour, our spoiling of environments. 1
‘You see, we had Christmas at our farmhouse,
But this year, there was no frost, no snow, it felt like it could be Easter’. 1
Amongst the carefree beach vibe, the three co-creators allude to their main premise: an ecological work, one of an impeding climate catastrophe. The laziness and hedonism of the beach indicative of a ‘denialist’ attitude, just like the metaphor ‘head in the sand’.
With regard for arguably the most important issue for the planet at the present time art can have a purpose, a critique yes: awakening people from ignorance and apathy. There is the possibility of greater awareness, building on scientific discourse and importantly offering hope, reaching out to a new imaginary future.
I wonder what the beach culture in Somalia is like?
Notes
1 https://sunandsea.lt/Sun-and-Sea_libretto.pdf
Reference
Madden, Thomas. ‘Venice - A New History’. Viking Penguin NY 2012
Scott Avery
2019
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