The Venice That Makes Things

Most people think of Venice as a place you look at: the palazzi, the canals, the churches. But for centuries it was just as much a place where things were made. Glass, mosaics, lace, fabrics, books. A lot of that still happens today, in workshops you can walk past without noticing. From October 19 to 24, a new event called RADAR puts those people at the center.

What RADAR is

RADAR is the new version of Venice Fashion Week, which a small Venetian organization called Venezia da Vivere has run for twelve years. This year they decided fashion on its own was too narrow, so they widened it to art, design, craft and the schools training the next generation. The city presented it at Ca’ Farsetti, the town hall, on October 7. The organizers describe it as turning Venice into a creative campus spread across the whole city. In practice, that means six days of talks, small exhibitions, shows and open studios in palazzi, foundations and shops all over town.

The names involved tell you a lot about it. There’s Iuav, Venice’s university of architecture and design, and the Bevilacqua La Masa and Querini Stampalia foundations. There’s Orsoni, the furnace in Cannaregio that has been making gold mosaic tiles since 1888. And there’s Designskolen Kolding, a Danish design school bringing a student project to Orsoni.

Day by day

Monday opens with a tailoring show called Always in Venice at the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista. It’s one of the city’s old confraternity halls, the one with the marble staircase by Mauro Codussi. On Tuesday there’s an exhibition of wearable art at Berengo Studio near San Marco, the Murano glass studio known for working with contemporary artists, and a project at Palazzo Venart on the Grand Canal. Wednesday is a conversation about hospitality and community at Casa Flora. Thursday has a roundtable at Palazzetto Tito with a title I like, Venezia Produce Futuro, “Venice produces the future.” The same day, Iuav presents its fashion school at the Procuratie and the Kolding students show their work at Orsoni.

PhotoSalviati façade, Grand Canal

The conversation I’d go for

On Friday the 23rd, the designer Antonio Marras sits down with the art critic Angela Vettese and Sara Sozzani Maino at The Human Safety Net’s home in the Procuratie Vecchie, the long arcaded building that runs along Piazza San Marco. Marras is from Alghero, in Sardinia, and his clothes are full of the island: old fabrics, embroidery, family stories. Vettese is one of the most respected voices on contemporary art in Italy and has long taught at Iuav. Sozzani Maino, of Vogue Italia, has spent her career championing young designers. Put the three of them together and you have fashion, art and craft at one table, which is exactly what RADAR is trying to do. That same day the Querini Stampalia presents a project called Quadreria Futura Venezia.

Open doors

From Thursday to Saturday, studios and workshops across the city open to the public for Atelier Aperti. This is the part I’d plan the week around. In Venice, the most interesting rooms are usually the ones where someone is working, and you rarely get to walk into them without an introduction. RADAR ends on Saturday with Radar Night, when fashion and design shops stay open late and serve aperitivos inside.

PhotoA Murano glass workshop

Why October

I was in Venice in July for the Redentore, when the whole basin was full of boats and the city was celebrating at full volume. October is the opposite. The summer crowds are gone, the light is low, and Venice feels like it belongs to the Venetians again. It’s the month when you can actually talk to the person behind the counter, and RADAR is six days of exactly those conversations.

In Venice, the most interesting rooms are usually the ones where someone is working.