Corteo de Casteo I
Corteo de Casteo I, the first part a two-part program of artistic performances and interventions, discussions and events embedded within the community and throughout the Sestiere of Castello during the 55th Venice Biennale.
Corteo de Casteo I invited participants to form their own corteo (procession) as they followed a suggested schedule and itinerary that took them from the bars of Via Garibaldi with Elena Mazzi, to Riva dei Sette Martiri with Marta Grasso, to Serra dei Giardini with Maria Morganti, San Piero de Casteo with artistic collective NEOLA ONLUS, the Giardini with IOCOSE, and, finally at Laboratorio Occupato Morion for Viaindustriae’s video projection as a grand finale.
Corteo de Casteo
Feeding from Venice’s cultural memory while fostering its inhabitant’s civic agency in the face of mounting cultural and ecological threats to its survival, Corteo de Casteo sought to build bridges between all Venetians, permanent and temporary residents as well as local and international artists in Castello, home to one of the few remaining local communities in Venice as well as to one of the most prominent international art events.
Corteo de Casteo was the first performance series of FAR FESTA: Nuove Feste Veneziane, a collaborative public art and performance project with Bevilacqua La Masa resident curatorial collective CAKE AWAY and IUAV University in the Sestiere of Castello during the 55th Venice Biennale.
FAR FESTA: Nuove Feste Veneziane
FAR FESTA brings together the legacy of the Venetian Republic’s civic rituals, popular festivals and carnival with an alternative history of performance rooted in public ceremonial culture and processional traditions.
Using Venice as a model from which to think about other globalized territories, FAR FESTA asks: If the stability of the Venetian Republic was sustained by its civic rituals then, at times of societal instability, can contemporary rituals instill anew a sense of social cohesiveness and inaugurate novel ways of making community? If so, what are these rituals to be, who are they to include, where are they to take place, and what new cartography of the city might they help create?
FAR FESTA: Nuove Feste Veneziane is an ongoing independent research and curatorial project on contemporary civic rituals by curator and IUAV guest professor Claire Tancons and curatorial collective and Bevilacqua La Masa 2013 studio residents CAKE AWAY.