Artist
Venezia Rocco
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.
Is Life Under The Sun Not Just a Dream
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.
Bebe Blanco Agterberg, a Dutch visual-storyteller working with photography, has a body of work that perfectly fits the book form. In 2019, Bebe took part in a Void’s activity that paired photographers and designers to make a zine in a day. Her politicized work stands out as strong and appealing. Her dealings with the Post-truth Era make the work relevant to our contemporary days.
Tereza Kozinc, who we first met in a book-making workshop, has a deeply personal, experimental work. Part of her practice is transforming it into zines and artist books.
Exploring the notions of ‘home’, Kozinc has an appealing diaristic approach that obscures the limits of reality and fiction. Joselito Verschaeve’s photography is technically meticulous. His editing process is very well-thought-out. He carefully plays with simple and banal subjects, elevating and re-signifying them. We were lucky enough to have Joselito as a trainee at Void in Athens. During his stay in Greece, he developed hand-to-hand with Void’s editor Myrto Steirou his forthcoming debut book that will be soon published by Void.
The subjectivity of the British photographer Emily Graham’s practice is what initially dragged Void’s attention. Her work leaves space for the audience’s interpretation, with rich and complex metaphorical potential. Her project ‘The Blindest Man’ is a captivating story about a real, unsolved treasure-hunting mystery. Open to interpretation and bringing much more questions than answers, ‘The Blindest Man’ will be Graham’s first book, to be published by Void in 2022.
Rocco Venezia 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. Matters well-developed in his first book, ‘Nekyia’ (Witty Books).
Our selected talents of 2021 have, if not all, most of the attributes we look for in our books: well-defined personal approach to photography; a work open to interpretation, raising more questions than answers; and a creative blur of the frontiers between reality and fiction.
Being an independent publishing house, Void wishes to give voice to artists with bodies of work that might struggle to find venue elsewhere, that being due to the nature of their (dark) subjects, the experimental approach to their practice, or even the artist’s career moment. With this in mind, Void is extremely proud of fostering the photographer’s debut books.