We are delighted to announce a further partnership with the British Council on the 2019 Venice Fellowships Programme which forms part of the British Pavilion at the 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia.
AUB is supporting two second-year BA (Hons) Fine Art students to spend a month in Venice, conducting independent research and mediating the exhibition, Cathy Wilkes, curated by Dr Zoe Whitley.
The students, Evie Redwood and Kinnari Saraiya are given an exclusive opportunity to spend a month in Venice during one of the world’s most significant art and architecture exhibitions organised by La Biennale di Venezia, which will run from 11 May – 24 November 2019. They will be stewarding and mediating the British Pavilion and undertaking independent research projects while in Venice.
Evie explained: “Having the opportunity to work as a fellow in the Venice Biennale for the British Pavilion is fantastic, I’m really looking forward to learning more about the Biennale and Cathy Wilkes work and to engage in my research task in Venice. Within my practice, I explore the idea of communication and how the public view and receive information and I’m excited to make new work in response to a month in Venice.”
The Venice Fellowships Programme offers our students, graduates, researchers and artists the opportunity to become actively involved in La Biennale di Venezia and gain first-hand experience of the British Pavilion, this year’s curators and their vision.
Genevieve Marciniak, Venice Fellowships Programme Manager, British Council, said:
“The Venice Fellowships programme is a fantastic international experience for students, graduates, early-career artists and cultural professionals – with bespoke training in London, skills development opportunities at the British Pavilion, and a chance to expand networks across the UK and internationally. The Fellows are involved in research and the production of creative responses to the Biennale and Venice itself. This is key for our UK partners engaged in improving outward mobility and employability. For the British Council, it is very important to support emerging artists, architects, curators and researchers – and to place informed mediators at the heart of the British Pavilion.”
The British Council has commissioned Cathy Wilkes, the renowned artist to represent Great Britain at La Biennale di Venezia, one of the world’s most significant art and architecture exhibitions. Since the late 1990s, Glasgow-based Cathy Wilkes (b. 1966, Dundonald, Belfast) has built a considerable reputation for sculptural installations of profound and mysterious intensity, which often evoke interiors and places of loss. Cathy Wilkes insists on the private life of the artist and questions how art can relate to human experience. Cathy Wilkes’s work is tender, intimate, autobiographical – yet universal.
The British Council has been responsible for the British Pavilion in Venice since 1937, showcasing the best of the UK’s artists, architects, designers and curators to an international audience.
The Fellowships programme was initiated in 2014 by the British Council to strengthen the British Pavilion contribution as a platform for ideas and research. This programme aims to educate and enrich the exhibition, making it a reference point for universities and arts institutions. The Fellowships offers a way of viewing and experiencing art and architecture that provides a new outlook on issues of public and private space, artistic process and display.
Earlier this year Architecture and Fine Art students attended the Venice Biennale and hosted workshops as part of a project organised by the British Council.
