Warwick Venice Centre Update
"We’ve had a very busy start to the academic year in 25/26, welcoming nearly 100 students to the WVC. SCAPVC taught their annual Screening Venice course with 20 students in September, coinciding with the Venice Film Festival. History and History of Art taught their Venice Term courses in Term 1, providing a cohort of nearly 75 students with unforgettable immersive learning experience in Venice and beyond.
The WVC hosted a number of public-facing events this term. In October, we hosted the Frances Clarke Annual Lecturew hich was organised by the History department and delivered by Sarah Quill. Prof. Jonathan Davies (History) delivered a lecture for the Venice in Peril fund, with whom we collaborate quite closely. In November, we hosted the Humfrey Butters Annual Public Lecture— part of #OneWorldWarwick and the University’s 60th anniversary celebrations. Deborah Howard presented a fascinating talk on “Venetian Palace Architecture ‘Inside-out,’” and the event was attended by over 70 members of the public along with special guests and close friends of the University such as Lady Doris Butterworth. History of Art also organised a book launch featuring a Warwick alumna; Marie-Louise Lilywhite presented her recent work Reforming Art in Renaissance Venice.
We were honoured to receive international visits to and host events with our international partners at the WVC. In October, President Jin Li of Fudan University and his delegation visited the centre for discussions with our team. We were also very pleased to host a delegation from Monash University’s Campus in Prato at the Warwick Venice Centre in mid-October to discuss closer collaboration between our two centres. Finally, in December, we held a networking event at the Warwick Venice Centre as part of EUTOPIA week in Venice which was hosted and organised by Ca’ Foscari; the event welcomed nearly 90 people, including the rectors/presidents of six of our EUTOPIA partners.
The WVC has also been very active in hosting research workshops and conferences. Already in Term 1, we’ve hosted conferences and events from SCAPVC, SMLC, Physics, Cultural and Media Policy Studies, the IAS, and Theatre and Performance Studies with topics ranging from amateur theatre to corporeality to the silk roads. We were also pleased to welcome Ocean Critchley as an administrative assistant to the Warwick Venice Centre Team in December.
In 2026, we celebrate the recent appointment of Valeria Zane as the new director of the Fondazione Levion January 1st. The Levi are our hosts in Venice and located in the same building as the Warwick Venice Centre. They are a wonderful cultural heritage foundation dedicated to the study of music (including sound, musicology, performance, concerts, and more). We are fortunate to have our space in the same building as the Levi and their specialised Gianni Milner library, which features over 40,000 volumes specialised in music and musicology. In the new year, we hope to continue building and growing our collaborations with them and are already planning on co-hosting the International Conference on Immersive and 3D Audio together in November 2026. If you’d like to get involved in this conference, or if you have any ideas for a teaching or research collaborations with the Levi around the topics of music and musicology, please get in touch.
Looking forward, this spring, the WVC has a busy roster of upcoming events including book launches, research workshops, intensive teaching on topics ranging from environmental humanities to organised crime, and much more. We can’t wait to see what the new year has in store and hope to grow our teaching, research, and public engagement activities more widely in the University and across our International Partnerships.
Buon anno a tutti e spero di cuore accogliervi a Venezia in 2026.”
Dr Bryan Brazeau, WVC Academic Director and the Warwick Venice Centre Team