Every two years, Italy welcomes the biggest art exhibition in the whole world: the Venice Biennale, which started back in 1895 and has prevailed until today through decades of new trends, multiple perspectives, and various voices coming from artists and their work. In 2024, the Venice Biennale celebrated its 60th version titled “Foreigners Everywhere”, curated by the Brazilian artistic director Adriano Pedrosa.
Last May, the students of the Master of Applied Human Rights had the opportunity to visit the Biennale and explore the rest of Venice and the open exhibitions that were displayed throughout the entire city, and have a first-hand experience with art from all over the world.
3 days between the Giardini and the Arsenale
In this opportunity, and thanks to the exhibition’s main topic, the artists and their narratives raised multiple human rights issues, such as the long and dangerous journeys that refugees have to do to get to Europe, the violence of colonialism and their effects until today in Africa and the Americas, and life during and after living in a war-zone.
During the first two days of the visit, the students had a guided tour throughout the main exhibitions of the Giardini and the Arsenale, which are the main locations for the international exhibitions. There, they were exposed to various expressions of art from all over the world. At the Giardini, the students could walk around the National Pavilions that were created right at the beginning of the 20th Century and find, in each of them, exhibitions from the participant States or their guest countries.
On the second day, the meeting point was translated to the Arsenale, another of the main sites of the arts festival located just a few minutes away from the Giardini. Here, more of the international exhibition is shown through smaller national pavilions that develop a little bit further the idea of “foreigner” that Adriano Pedrosa presented in this Biennale. At the Arsenale, the countries that did not build their pavilions at the Giardini during the twentieth century, have a chance to show a glimpse of what their national artists have to say about the main topic of the Biennale.
After both days, the students would meet at the Arsenale to talk and share their thoughts about the exhibitions they saw during the day. The conversations were always guided and moderated by our Masters Team, which along the trip was integrated by our co-founder and Senior Advisor, Marijana Grandits; the Academic Program Manager, Walter Suntinger; the Cooperations Manager, Verena Benedict-Orlicek; and Sofia Braga, transdisciplinary artist and co-lecturer of the class “Human Rights in the Digital Age”.
On the third day, the students had the opportunity to check the exhibitions fully in their own, following their interests and absorbing every art piece in front of them. There was indeed a lot of walking, boat rides, appreciation, excitement, and conversations around art and how human rights can and have been involved in this important matter.
The presence of Human Rights
In this version of the Biennale, human rights were certainly one of the main topics of inspiration for the curator, the artists, and the participant states. Across the Giardini, the Arsenale, the National Pavilions, and the external exhibitions, the general public could see and immerse themselves in works that reflected life in the Global South, post-war trauma, systemic violence, and the lack of equality and predominance of discrimination in human history.
The curator gave space for those stories to be narrated through the voices of multiple artists, which had as a result a Biennale strongly focused on the “queer” artist, a concept that in its origins meant “strange”, according to the Oxford Dictionaries. At this enormous art exhibition, the queer could speak and share their stories, which filled the Biennale with wonderful Indigenous, folk, LGBTQIA+, and women’s artwork. Artwork that was finally on the spot and not simply hidden in the shadows of colonialism, tradition, and censorship.
Through arts and their different messages, the students had the possibility to interact and get involved with multiple issues across the globe, from deep connections to the environment and reconciliation with our senses, as it was presented in a symbolic and sensorial manner at the French Pavilion; to the artwork made by “Las Arpilleras”, a group of anonymous Chilean artists who through their huge embroideries told stories of community and solidarity during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
Like these, the experiences and stories were multiple, just as the students’ perceptions and their personal connections to different forms of representation. For Marijda Kamper, one of the students of Generation 12 and originally from South Africa, the Biennale was an inspiring experience as she has always been interested in the way that art can be used for more than just beauty. “This year’s Biennale reiterated the importance art can play in exploring political and social issues while portraying essential and meaningful messages to the world through various forms of art”, she said after exploring both main sites and visiting some of the external exhibitions during her last day in Venice.
“Being able to experience art from across the world allowed me not only to reflect on the beliefs, history, and lives of various cultures but also broadened my perspectives and challenged various viewpoints. It was inspiring to experience new ways of creating, evoking an even greater curiosity towards engaging with socially complex ideas through different art experiences”, was Marijda’s reflection on the study trip to the Biennale.
“I felt the power of art and how it can convey complex ideas in a fun and engaging way”, were the words of Julia Stepanova to describe her days in Italy. Julia is from Russia and is also one of the master’s students. For her, “Art is a way to escape routine and clichés, to open your mind and see the world anew. In my opinion, art is the best way to address human rights problems because it allows for the envisioning and subsequent implementation of the strongest ideas, which might seem crazy at first glance”.
In the words of Julia, art “is a way to approach utopia, to imagine a world where human rights are fully protected”, and that approach was certainly one of the main purposes of this stud trip. Visiting the Venice Biennale was more than just art, it was also an extra seed into the human rights careers of the students and their journeys to aspire and inspire a better world for everyone.
