Palazzo Pesaro Papafava hosts exhibition during Art Night Venezia

Warwick’s Venetian campus will host ‘Italy is Out’, a unique exhibition of photographer Mario Badagliacca’s work during this year’s Art Night Venezia, on Saturday 17 June.

Art Night Venezia is a free evening of culture taking place all around the city. It is designed and coordinated by the Ca 'Foscari University in collaboration with the City of Venice. The night brings together and celebrates the cities arts and culture with a city wide bill of events, making it a truly unique experience.

On the night between 19:00 and 21:00 visitors will be rowed across the canal in boats provided by the Arzanà Association, while serenaded by live music from the balcony of the palazzo.

Mario’s exhibition asks the question, ‘What does it mean to be an Italian abroad today?’ His photographs explore the lives of Italian migrants across different generations. Through a series of thoughtful portraits that show the personal objects his subjects have kept, Mario tells the story of their family and their connections with Italian culture.

The sitters in his photographs look out at the viewer from the places where they now live: the UK, the US and Argentina. Alongside, are images of tattered photographs showing family reunions and loved ones, treasured items of jewellery and Italian books, records and CDs. Other images show a more complex connection to Italy, from a pasta machine and embroidered tablecloths to ancient travel documents documenting their journey. Less obvious items include a toy panda, a feather pillow and a copy of the Italian translation of La Internacional.

Badagliacca's work shows how ideas about family and country become interwoven and how the stereotype of "italianita" is made redundant by the strong personal histories of everyone involved in the project.

These photographs are part of the research for the AHRC funded project 'Transnationalising Modern Languages: Mobility Identity and Translation in Modern Italian Cultures' involving researchers from the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Warwick.

Alongside the exhibition photographs, recipes and stories from an Instagram project #PanOnTour organised by the Mead Gallery at the University of Warwick will be presented. Visitors to a recent major exhibition of the work of Subodh Gupta were invited to borrow a cast-iron pan and to cook a meal in it that had some value or meaning to them. They then photographed the meal and shared the image on Instagram using the hashtag #PanOnTour. For some it was a dish that they cooked for friends and family on special occasions. For others it was a treasured recipe handed down through generations, or simply a meal that reminded them of a special place or time in their lives. Then pan has since travelled the length and breadth of the UK while collecting recipes.

Visitors to the Palazzo will be able to take some of the recipes home for themselves or to share with their families and friends.

Attendance is free but please register your interest with Chiara Farnea Croff, Venice@warwick.ac.uk

A tavola non si invecchia!

Notes to editors:

Warwick has provided a dedicated teaching space in Venice for over forty years, housed in the fifteenth century Palazzo Pesaro-Papafava since 2007. This stunning building, in gothic style, belonged to a rich patrician family who exercised considerable power in political and economic spheres.

Since 1967 the Warwick History Department, joined later by the Warwick Art History Department, has sent a group of third-year undergraduates to Venice every autumn term.