In late May this year, eight artists, writers and curators from Aotearoa travelled to Venice to experience the Venice Biennale as part of Learning from Venice, an intensive five-day workshop led by respected curator, writer and educator Christina Barton, alongside Hanahiva Rose, Curator Contemporary Art at Te Papa.
The inaugural participants were Melanie Tangaere Baldwin, Sally McMath, Te Ara Minhinnick, Luke Shaw, Lachlan Taylor, p.Walters, Anto Yeldezian and Jingcheng Zhao.
I first heard about the initiative as a trustee of Gow Family Foundation, which was invited to support the programme. I could see the potential immediately: an investment by our family foundation (alongside other supporters) could give eight emerging practitioners an experience that might matter enormously at this stage of their careers. I offered to help with some of the on-the-ground logistics, and covered my own way to Venice.
The participants came from different parts of the visual arts community, selected via an open call by a panel that brought together different curatorial, institutional and artistic perspectives, including people with Venice Biennale experience. Many didn't know each other.
There was substantial preparation before they arrived, including a pre-workshop hui with artists and curators who had previously been involved with the Biennale. This gave the group context for New Zealand's long relationship with Venice and also began to build a sense of connection before they travelled.
By the time we arrived, the participants were prepared not simply to see, but to look, question and reflect.
Christina created a programme with a rhythm that became one of its great strengths. There were visits to exhibitions within the Biennale and beyond it, readings, conversations, opportunities to revisit previous New Zealand projects, and – perhaps most importantly – time to reflect.
The pace mattered. There was enough structure to make the most of five intense days and enough space for people to follow their own interests and respond to what they were encountering.
One of my favourite parts of each day was the morning reflection. We would gather in the courtyard of the accommodation, a former monastery, to share thoughts about the previous day, responding to readings and experiences, and hearing each participant talk about a previous Biennale project.
It was a deceptively simple format.
Sitting together, in person, away from our usual environments, created a space for people to listen and to think aloud. An artist might respond to something through their practice; a curator might see a different set of possibilities; a writer might find a question that had been overlooked.
The value wasn't necessarily in reaching agreement. It was in being exposed to other ways of seeing. I became more aware of how many different people and interests sit around an artwork - and how differently they experience the world of art.
For all the intensity and complexity of the global arts world, what struck me most strongly during the week was the care within the group. This became increasingly apparent to me.
The participants came from different disciplines and brought different experiences, interests and responses to the work they encountered. Yet there was a real attentiveness to one another and to the artists whose work we were seeing.
That kind of pastoral care matters, particularly early in a career, when people are still working out where they belong and what kind of practitioner they want to become.
One of the subjects discussed that stayed with me was the tension between the people who make and care for art and the power and money that surround it.
I felt this particularly strongly in Brazilian artist Paulo Nazareth's Algebra, presented at Punta della Dogana, the extraordinary former customs house owned by François Pinault and restored by architect Tadao Ando.
I was deeply moved by the exhibition. There was an invitation to confront struggle and wrongdoing, and a sense that the work was asking us to consider what - and who - gets carried across borders, histories and systems of power. Nazareth's own relationship with Venice added another layer. He chose not to travel to Venice for the show and instead celebrated with a presentation in Veneza, Minas Gerais, Venice’s namesake neighbourhood in Brazil. His resolve was to fulfil his vow to walk across all African territories before returning to Europe.
There was also a simple but powerful gesture: Nazareth invited visitors to take a poster of his work in exchange for koha, with the proceeds supporting incarcerated populations in Brazil. It felt like a different kind of transaction. In a building owned by one of the wealthiest collectors in the world I found myself admiring the artist for his ability to draw attention to the inequalities that structure the wider art economy.
As a supporter of the programme, and therefore inevitably on the other side of some of these questions, I became conscious of the position and responsibility that comes with providing resources to support artists. How do we contribute to an ecosystem without inadvertently reinforcing the hierarchies within it?
I don't have a simple answer. But I think asking the question is part of the responsibility.
How do we have better conversations between these different parts of the arts ecosystem? And, more importantly, how do we make sure that artists remain at the core of those conversations?
As we entered the immense Arsenale, several of us found ourselves imagining what it must have been like to experience Mataaho Collective’s Takapau there in 2024, when the work won the Golden Lion for Best Participant in the International Exhibition. It was an extraordinary achievement by artists from Aotearoa, and standing there made me feel both proud and curious. How had that moment felt for the collective? And why did it seem to me that there had been comparatively little recognition of such an achievement back home?
It made me wonder what it takes and what it means for an Aotearoa artist to achieve something extraordinary internationally, and how we make sure those achievements are seen, understood and celebrated here too.
And then there was Venice itself.
Nothing quite prepares you for experiencing the city for the first time. The water, the architecture, the crowds, the accumulated history - and the sheer density of art and cultural activity create an environment unlike anywhere else.
We were there two weeks after protests over the inclusion of Russia and Israel. We did not encounter any protests while we were in the city, but we thought often and hard about how to respond to the politics of the occasion.
In Venice, you constantly encounter the unexpected: a work in a historic building, a national pavilion with its own political history, an artist working in dialogue with a city that has been shaped by centuries of trade, migration, tourism and power. The experience becomes bigger than the individual artwork or exhibition.
It made me think about how art can help us make sense of the world around us, and how much our understanding changes when we encounter work in relation to its history, place and context. This is something Christina reflects on in a recent conversation with André Chumko for Articulate, discussing why art history matters and the place for Aotearoa in Venice. She talks in particular about a project I loved because it connected so thoughtfully with the city, Lydia Ourahmane’s exhibition at the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation resulting from a five-month residency in Venice.
That is precisely why opportunities like Learning from Venice matter. International exposure expands the frame through which practitioners understand their own work and the systems around it.
I keep coming back to the eight people who made the journey. They were already making their mark in Aotearoa, and their work continues to unfold. Melanie has curated Te Ara I Whiti which has just opened for Te Tairāwhiti Arts Festival, featuring Te Ara as one of the artists. Lachlan has launched Local Arts Column with exhibition reviews. Te Ara has shared her journal reflections in Sauce Magazine. Anto, Melanie, and Lachlan have each written reflections on the programme for The Post. I don't know yet what the group will continue to make, write, curate or contribute as they carry the experience of Venice with them. That's part of what makes the journey so exciting.
The participants are now bringing their reflections together in a publication about what they encountered in Venice, which will be launched later this year. This Wednesday (7 October), a number of the participants are gathering again for a public forum at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki to share what they experienced and learned and there will be further public talks in Wellington and Christchurch. I like the idea that the experience will continue to travel – not just through the participants' own practices, but through conversations with audiences back home.
That, perhaps, is another part of the value of international exposure: what you encounter can become something to share, question and build on with others.
Most of all, Learning from Venice has reminded me that gaining international experience is not an end in itself. The real value is what happens when people are given the time, context and support to encounter a bigger world - and then bring what they have learned back with them.
Perhaps the real opportunity is not simply helping artists get there, but creating the conditions for what they encounter to continue to matter here.
Not just to see the world, but to be supported by the community they return to.
