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Is Life Under The Sun Not Just a Dream

Venezia Rocco

Nominated by
Void
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When the child was a child,
It was the time for these questions:
Why am I me, and why not you?
Why am I here, and why not there?
When did time begin, and where does space end?
Is life under the sun not just a dream?*

To me, it seems to exist an exact time during the day when things are revealed under the warmest sun, bringing out their own, mute, truth. Wondering at the margins of southern Europe realities, where the ephemeral remains of everyday life are improvised temporary sculptures and the slag of a breaking classicism acquires its own life, I wish with my work to punctuate this search in the ordinary.

Like the child, the protagonist in the extract of Peter Handke's poem, I wanted to start doubting my own perception, being interested in some of the subjects that for Gilles Clément form the so-called third landscape, I sought the metaphysical facades of these places for tension created between an ambiguous human presence and the surface of things.

By placing a geographical limit on my research, I wanted to focus on states such as Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain, southern countries of the Continent that more than others still show the aftermath of the last economic and social crisis.

By investigating the surfaces and proposing a dreamlike representation of the contemporary realities of these places, I want my work to create a visual perception of a mental Southern Europe.

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The Artist
Venezia Rocco
Nominated in
2021
By
Void
Lives and Works in
Rocco Venezia (b. 1991) is an Italian visual artist working mainly with photography. The subject of his works originates from a personal interest in literature as well as a certain awareness of European political and economic situations.

He holds a first-class honours degree in Documentary Photography from Newport, University of South Wales. Venezia has exhibited his work in solo shows at VOID (Greece) and JEST (Italy), while his work was displayed in group exhibitions at Fondazione Fabbri (Italy), Capa Photography Center (Hungary), ISSP Gallery (Latvia) and Gallery Image (Denmark). His project Nekyia is a book published by the Italian independent editor Witty Books in May 2017, the monograph is part of the collection at the National Art Library of Victoria & Albert Museum in London and Colección FOLIO at Centro de la Imagen in Mexico City.

His latest work - Is Life Under The Sun Not Just a Dream - started in 2018 and developed under the European Program Parallel Platform, by which Venezia has been selected as second cycle emerging artists.

Next to his personal projects, Rocco is working as a curator for PHmuseum and he is the co-founder of PHmuseum Lab, a photographic hub based in Bologna.

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