October in Venice

We express many thanks and much appreciation to the Emily Harvey Foundation Board and staff for our recent EHF residency in Venice and offer a perspective on the experience and what it meant to us, given our ongoing “Pestilence” project, to be able to return to that city.

Our visit was much more engaged with Silvia Scattolin, who has served as EHF Venice liaison for nearly 20 years, and the other visiting artist residents, sharing meals and extended EHF invitations to places we might otherwise have missed. We met EHF Board Advisors Shaul Bassi and Karen Moller, who invited us to cocktails and receptions to meet their colleagues. Locals we met there were certainly interested in finding out more about EHF history and purpose so we enjoyed acting as “ambassadors” sharing what we know and what its future will mean for Venice and the international community of artists that it facilitates with these residencies.

To be able to invite our ongoing collaborator Rodrigo Chazaro to join us and share his first time travels to Europe was a real pleasure and privilege. More directly connected to our Pestilence project was visiting San Lazzaro degli Armeni, a former leper colony, now the home of an Armenian monastery, arriving near sunset to see the stunning effect of light and shadow inside the chapel. Folks we also met were Venice Biennale Music curator Caterina Barbieri and writer Peter Zilahy when we attended the Golden Lion award ceremony honoring Meredith Monk. This event and seeing her in concert were a highlight of our stay, thanks to Sarah Lerner of The House Foundation who secured us tickets to attend.

In addition, the concurrent Architecture Bienale was an eye opening, gigantic provocation addressing climate change, urban sprawl and innovation. Day trips also included the Giotto Chapel in Padua and Fra Angelico in Florence to keep us on our cultural quests for sights, sounds, tastes and texture so vital to making the most of our stay. From grand palazzos and museums to thrift stores and endless cicchetti and vino. Always walking walking, walking…

To those that kept Allied going in our absence - Mille Grazie a Tutti!

- Peter Cramer & Jack Waters 2025
 

photos clockwise from top - full moonrise on the Zattere with EHF resident artists Eva Lundsager, Peter Cramer, Marion Scemama, Evandro Salles, Katia Maciel, François Pain, Jack Waters / Caterina Barbieri & Meredith Monk / Building Bridges by Lorenzo Quinn / Cicchetti by Vino Vero /  Jack Waters & Company