We didn't visit the Arsenale nor the Giardini exhibition spaces of the Venezia Biennale Architettura but we found several of the participating alternative spaces around Venice. The most remarkable was the Romanian storefront comprised of childhood games that were played during the communist era. A screening room in the back showed interviews with people who were recalling the games they played and suggested that, during that era, the children made use of informal space, essentially making it a public space. The video suggested that this tradition ended because of a concern for child safety in the neighborhood. It wasn’t clear if the participants were inferring that the danger was a direct result of transitioning from communism to capitalism, or a general concern for child safety internationally. [1]
Anti-cruise ship banners hung from some of the apartment buildings in Venice. Leaving la Laguna, I saw the forest of streets and canals in totality and the enormous cruise ships at bay. In Manhattan I actively avoid Time Square, so I can sympathize with the local distaste for the hordes of tourists. But on the other hand, Manhattan and Venice share a history of having been a point of exchange, a massive supermarket of goods brought to these ports for trade, international exchange and the fact that people settled there and made cities, neighborhoods, communities and a life there, can also be thought of as an unfortunate decision of territorializing these chunks of Earth that probably should have not been inhabited. Perhaps "decision" isn't the right word; perhaps "condition" is more accurate. In either phrasing, the work in progress that is Capitalism had the unfortunate dependence on the human organism for movement, production and exchange and the proximity that we have situated our lives to our jobs has never been comfortable nor logical. Why we have adapted a live/work situation with our offices in our pockets is no more or less probable than had the trend gone the other way, that we had decided to live at our work, that we slept under desk counters at shopping malls, or that we abandoned our personal space for our work space, rather than bring our work space into our personal space.
On the Flixbus from Venice to Graz, I sat in the seat near the stairs and bathroom. It was both the best and worst seat, since I had more spacious room and a small desk, but also a view into each passengers' descent into the bathroom and any subsequent smells. Along the way, I saw a hillside with a half-dozen red banners with golden spears; a regional flag? The small towns tucked into these hills made me realize how long I has been in cities; I could only vaguely remember the way of life there; knowing everyone by name; watching television as a conduit to the world, rather than for entertainment or “culture;” seeing people grow up, rather than knowing they too will grow old; the Milky Way at night; tickets from a sheriff with whom you once shared class; the rumors of the motivations of a suicide; garage sales; having no plan, only a way of life.
The bus picked up double the passengers in Trieste. The hilly, seaport city reminded me of parts of Spain. Joyce spent time there. It looked like a lovely city to visit or escape to or from. In Ljubljana more passengers got on, including a young woman from Vienna, named Eva. She saw that I was editing a video and asked if I worked in television. I told her that I was editing an interview for an experimental documentary about activist who were trying to protect trees. She was reading an anthology about the mythology of each tree and was too interested in my work and New York to let me get back to work. She had been visiting her boyfriend, who was a neuroscience graduate student in Ljubljana. She had been in a long-distance relationship with him since he was an undergraduate at Oxford and her tangible yearning for intimacy was as palpable as her comfort with illogically inconvenient human relations. We talked about cities and countries and, like so many Austrians I had met on this trip, she was astonished by the stereotypical shortcomings of the US: the healthcare system; the homeless problem; the shootings that are more frequent than peaceful protest. Like many Europeans with whom I’ve spoken she had absolutely no interest in giving up her privileged life in Europe.
Returning to Graz, it felt like home. The rain at hauptbahnhof, the homeless, the tram to Hauptplatz and then back to my room in the seminary.
We end up visiting cities because that is where the train, planes, buses and boats go, hopefully taking us to where our loves also are.
[1] “The Map: Biennale Arch 2018,” Venezia News, 2018.
Romania /2,” New Gallery of the Romanian Institute for culture and Humanistic Research, Palazzo Correr Campo Santa Fosca, Cannaregio 2214.