Stories

Discover more about Personal Structures and the artists showcased in this year’s edition by browsing through exhibition news, insightful articles, conversations with participants, video interviews, and more.

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Presenting the 2022 ECC Awards

Like every edition, the European Cultural Centre presents the ECC Awards to commemorate the closing of the exhibition and to honour the participants that haven taken part in it

Personal Structures says goodbye to its sixth edition

The European Cultural Centre (ECC) hosted the finisage of the sixth edition of the art biennial Personal Structures, which ran between 23 April and 27 November 2022, at Palazzo Bembo, Palazzo Mora and the Marinaressa Gardens in Venice, Italy.

Personal Structures Closing Week | 19-27 November

The European Cultural Centre closes the sixth edition of Personal Structures with a series of exclusive events which will take place between the 19th and 27th of November, 2022 at Palazzo Mora, Palazzo Bembo, Palazzo Michiel and Marinaressa Gardens

Personal Structures on film: A visual narrative of the exhibition

Discover some of the best moments, reflections and thoughts that have emerged during the 2022 edition of the European Cultural Centre’s art biennial

Intersections between art and design in Personal Structures

The fusion of art and design tells a story, portrays emotions, and interprets reality from different perspectives. The result of this combination echoes the artist and designer’s creativity and inner world, reflecting current developments and imaginaries. Some even erase the line between art and design, producing works that embody a variety of techniques and are open to new aesthetics.

In Focus Participants

A conversation with Lorna York and Donald Martiny

The ECC team caught up with gallery director Lorna York from Madison Gallery and artists Donald Martiny about their participation in Personal Structures 2022, the importance of exhibiting in Venice and the link with Kandinsky's philosophy

Conversation Participants

Presenting the first international exhibit on Mardi Gras Indian artworks at Palazzo Mora

Away from its context and presented in a different setting, 300Forward brings to Venice at Palazzo Mora an installation filled with colours and meaning that shines a light on the history, identity and culture of the Mardi Gras Indians of New Orleans

Conversation Participants

Brushes of sincerity with Carlos Blanco Artero

In a short interview at Palazzo Mora, Spanish artist Carlos Blanco Artero shares the unique experience of exhibiting at the European Cultural Centre, being this a place where many renowned artists, galleries and museums have shown their works and where the curatorial team has shown great dedication before and during the exhibition, as perceived through the artist’s eyes.

Conversation Participants

Bridging technology and craft with MADWORKSHOP

From California to Venice, an eye-catching bridge has united the two cities in their shared reflection on one of history’s longest dichotomies, the interaction between humans and machines, offering a unique link between craftsmanship and machine-made objects

Conversation Participants

A city at the mirror

From all over the world, participants have found inspiration in Venice to create their artworks in the Personal Structures exhibition, offering different reflections and views on the same magical city

In Focus Exhibition

The ashes we leave behind by Ariela Wertheimer

A multidisciplinary artist born and based in Israel, Ariela Wertheimer has been drawing and photographing for the past 30 years. In her work, she interprets life processes, fleeting thoughts and vulnerabilities; seeking to mediate her weaknesses, difficulties, hesitations, struggles, and fears through the creative forms of photography, painting, video and ready-made.

Conversation Participants

From Palestine With Art in the interiors of Palazzo Mora

In April 2018, the first Palestinian museum opened in the Western Hemisphere known as Palestine Museum US with the mission to preserve, celebrate and share the Palestinian identity. Today, four years later, they have brought their expressions to Venice after being selected as one of the official Collateral Events of the 59th International Art Exhibition by La Biennale di Venezia and hosted in the European Cultural Centre's venue of Palazzo Mora.

Conversation Participants

A taste of chocolate’s history with Marcello Martínez-Vega

In the corridors of Palazzo Mora, there is a scent that pulls you to the second floor. A bitter but also sweet scent that, like breadcrumbs, you follow all the way up until reaching the surprise that awaits at the end. In a brown-coloured room appears El País del Cacao, an encompassing installation by Marcello Martínez Vega that offers a journey through time on one of the world’s most appreciated sweets, chocolate.

Conversation Participants

Calling out the climate crisis through the prism of art

American novelist Helen Phillips once said that we have been raised with the belief that art can’t be didactic. “That art can’t be political, that if it’s political it’s not art, it’s something else”. Yet, in today’s world, where changes and sudden events are continuously shaking our lives, that doesn’t feel true anymore. “Art isn’t just a separate aesthetic realm, it actually has political implications, and in the climate discourse art can actually make people look at the future in a way that they might not otherwise”. Personal Structures brings those discourses and ideas into the exhibition and does so thanks to the participation of artists who have included the ecological in their work.

In Focus Exhibition

An intimate and beautiful reveal of women through time by Oh Myung Hee

Award-winning artist Oh Myung Hee is a graduate of Sejong University and an Honorary Professor of the College of Art & Design at Suwon University, South Korea. She has exhibited extensively, including a solo exhibition at London’s Saatchi Gallery, at Osaka’s Kaze Gallery, the Galerie Bhak (Bhak Young-Duk) in Seoul, in Paris at the Espace Miromesnil, and now in Venice for Personal Structures 2022.

Conversation Participants

Exploring the realm of digital art: extended realities, NFTs and the metaverse

Contemporary art continues to incorporate new technologies and new paradigms, encouraging spectators to explore different ways of thinking and seeing the world. Being an open and progressive platform at the forefront of current developments in art and society, the European Cultural Centre selected for its biennial art exhibition Personal Structures – Reflections a group of artists and galleries that contribute to the realm of digital art.

In Focus Exhibition

The One in 'UNITY', the I-figures of sculptor Gill Gatfield

New Zealand artist and sculptor Gill Gatfield, discusses the ideas, forms, materials and contexts of UNITY, a site-specific project divided into two parts and presented at Palazzo Bembo and the Marinaressa Gardens.

Conversation Participants

When the photographer becomes a storyteller: A short journey into documentary photography

For its 2022 edition, Personal Structures is pleased to exhibit, among the many photographers on display, several very important names in the field of documentary photography: Alissa Everett, Martin Parr, Yoshiaki Suito, Daisuke Ozaki, Sandra Cattaneo Adorno and Peter Bracke.

In Focus Exhibition

The European Cultural Centre at Fiebre Photobook Fest

The European Cultural Centre launches the first-ever collaboration with Fiebre Photobook, a Spanish photobook fair and festival. A reference in this field, Fiebre brings together small and large publishers, self-publishers, collectives, zine creators, magazines, distributors and specialised stores to share their new publications, exchange feedback and further boost the photobook market.

Where art and spirituality meet: An exploration of the numinous at Personal Structures

Spirituality has many different definitions in our world. Religious beliefs, faith in a superior power, ancestral practices, appreciation for the mystery in nature, connection with inner beauty. There is not one single interpretation. Time has taught us that spirituality has taken up many different forms and history has shown us that it has been an important feature of humankind. But art has been the one to provide us and inspire us with testimonies of those experiences.

In Focus Exhibition

The beauty and confidence of Blackness

Embracing the identity and memory of African-American history and empowerment through an artistic lens at the European Cultural Centre

In Focus Exhibition

The femininity we choose by Maria Pavlovska

The idea of femininity has inspired and triggered various of the most important artistic and literary creations in the history of mankind. Either as an idealised concept or a notion subject to change with social and cultural movements, the concept has evolved and sparked multiple reflections. Artist Maria Pavlovska pays attention to the continuous redefinition of femininity throughout history and reveals her insights in the video-project installation "Mrs. & Ms. X'' at Palazzo Mora.

Conversation Participants

Removing the curtain of beauty with Chandraguptha Thenuwara

While attending Personal Structures in Venice, Dr. Sanjana Hattotuwa had the chance to speak with Prof. Chandraguptha Thenuwara, one of Sri Lanka’s most renowned artists about his work 'Covert' at Palazzo Mora. Being this an extraordinary honour for a Sri Lankan artist, Dr. Sanjana Hattotuwa and artist Thenuwara engaged in a conversation about the meaning and reflections of this installation.

Conversation Participants

Green Sofa Gallery and the intimate resurrection of Ukraine by Petro Smetana

In the Armenian street, right in the heart of the centre of mediaeval Lviv, rises a building that once used to be a tribunal but today has a completely different setting. This particular structure is the Green Sofa Gallery, one of the most renowned art galleries in Ukraine that has joined the Personal Structures exhibition with Resurrection, an installation by Ukrainian artist Petro Smetana at Palazzo Mora.

Conversation Participants

Patrick Laumond introduces MetaHism: A work of universal reality

For the first time, Laumond has joined the European Cultural Centre for the sixth edition of Personal Structures. He arrives at this show with many experiences on his back. Exhibitions in Switzerland, Belgium and France; as well as group shows in galleries across the United States, Austria, Strasbourg and many more. For 2022, he adds a stop in Venice to take part in ECC’s exhibition with one of his most iconic works.

Conversation Participants

Conveying the invisible truths through art with Wantian Cui

Wantian Cui has loved art since he was child and ever since aspired to become a painter. At the age of nine, he won a painting contest and already in high school he held his first art exhibition. Due to family circumstances and other factors, he was essentially self-taught by learning a great deal of Chinese and Western art achievements more widely and freely, breaking away from Soviet art teaching style in Chinese art schools which he was not heavily influenced by. As an undergraduate, he majored in literature and afterwards, by sliver of hope, decided to switch to economics, where he earned a PhD and became an economics professor. Meet Wantian Cui and read about his story.

Conversation Participants

Yoshiaki Suito and the eagerness to capture the world

An intimate photographic installation on the artist's travels through different countries, now available at the third floor of Palazzo Mora in Venice, Italy

Conversation Participants

Carrie Able at the intersection of fine art and immersive technology

In 2021, American artist Carrie Able and the European Cultural Centre started a conversation about a creative collaboration that today, over a year later, has flourished and resulted into a stunning installation present at Palazzo Bembo as part of the contemporary art exhibition Personal Structures - Reflections, organised and hosted by the ECC in Venice, Italy.

Conversation Participants

Hacking the QR code for a sustainable future

In the last few years, the QR code has become a ubiquitous tool and the ultimate symbol of commercial transactions. It is instantaneous, mercantile, quantitative, digital and anonymous. It has become a normality in our lives and often it passes unnoticed. But for Argentinean visual artist Elisa Insua there was an opportunity in the mundane, a chance to shift expectations and to refocus on what is important.

In Focus Participants

Sharing Perama: Conveying Art into Public Space

Starting from a local scale initiative, the Sharing Perama project introduces to the international audience of the exhibition Personal Structures - Reflections the emerging presentation Sharing Perama - Sharing Art, curated by Barbara Polla and Dominique Fiat, featuring works from artists Robert Montgomery, Marios Fournaris, and the duo Christos Panagos and Charalambos Margaritis.

Conversation Participants

Sandra Cattaneo Adorno Reflects on the Relationship Between Photography and Memory

After taking up photography at the age of 60 in 2013, Sandra Cattaneo Adorno is embarking on a new chapter in life. At a time when many people her age are beginning to slow down, Cattaneo Adorno is creating a new path as an older woman in a culture that venerates youth.

In Focus Participants

THEO and three: Woojin Kim, Chae Rimm and Lookha

Historically known as a cultural epicentre, Venice is the perfect setting for cultural and artistic exchange. It provides a unique opportunity for artists and creative minds from all fields to converse and grow further. This is what pulled [THEO], a contemporary art gallery from Seoul in Korea, to attend the 6th edition of Personal Structures, and who has come all the way to Venice representing the three artists Woojin Kim, Chae Rimm, and Lookha. A conversation with the gallery director, Hyunmin Kim, sheds light on the unique installations and the involvement of THEO at the Venetian exhibition.

Conversation Participants

MESOZOIC. Let's start over!

The installation is the 4th collaboration between Ellen Nash and Georgii Uvs with the distinctive feature of the search for truth, the study of the existence, always with a philosophical beginning.

In Focus Participants

The Personal Structures art biennial exhibition opens the doors of its 6th edition

The European Cultural Centre has launched the sixth edition of Personal Structures, the biennial contemporary art exhibition that will be open between the 23rd of April and will run until the 27th of November, 2022, in the city of Venice. The ECC is delighted to celebrate the exhibition’s opening and welcome everyone to its venues.

News Exhibition

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