Dear ______________,
@veniceinabottle is about communicating, connecting, linking.
There was a time in which a message in a bottle would do exactly what a social media platform like Instagram does nowadays: someone lonely in a desert island leaves a message floating in an immense space, a message to no-one and to everyone. In @veniceinabottle I am the sender, you are the receiver of the message - water, the vital and common element for every human being. A message communicates, connects and links. A message - a letter, an e-mail, a text, a post on social media, a zoom call, a video sent on whatsapp - is the needle in between two places, two people. There are always two sides of a message and a channel that its trajectory creates.
If we could see all the invisible lines traced by all types of messages sent around the world every second, we would for sure see them reflected on water. Water reflects and connects everything. Water fills the space that was once filled with emptiness: water connects continents, water links people, water crosses boundaries. WE ARE WATER.
A channel is a method or a system for communication or distribution(1): a channel is a column that links the floor and the ceiling; a channel is a window that connects inside and outside; a channel is a computer screen with people who are physically far away; a channel is an artwork with something to tell. A channel is a length of water joining two larger areas of water.
Water reflects the sky that is also our shared element: like water, it connects continents, links people and crosses boundaries. In the first part of @veniceinabottle, the bottle filled with water from the channels of Venice travelled from Venice to Lisbon (Portugal) and a different video was sent, posted on Instagram and played everyday, during 32 days. For the second part of @veniceinabottle, the sky of Venice will come into the exhibition space for 10 days through one of the bricks of the salty walls that inhabit this place. In the second chapter of this project the story evolves but the message remains the same: dear all, here’s my (impression of) Venice.
In this exhibition in the Laneri School, a place where in the past artisans worked with wool, the bottles on view are the needles of a patchwork of videos that is growing and becoming larger everyday. Like an infinity tapestry of colour and movement, these videos are sewed together with invisible threads that are not cotton or wool threads: they were digital and technological connections. They were relationships, visions and experiences.
With @veniceinabottle I want to propose an open discussion on the concept of “place”: from an exhibition space, passing through an instagram page. @veniceinabottle puts up an infinity of questions: what’s a message? What’s the purpose of Art? What’s a painting on a wall? What is a place? But @veniceinabottle also gives an infinity of possible answers: artworks are messages. Artworks communicate. Art is a means of communication just like water… and whatsapp. Art, instagram (and water), are for everyone. Art is a message that everyone should be able to read and receive.
With love,
Madalena
https://madalenacorreamendes.com/impressions-de-venise
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Inspired by the principle of the message in the bottle in the sea, another means of communication. One sender, millions of recipients. A bottle with a message. The message is water. Water of the Venitian Lagoon. A journey into the ocean, the invisible line that connects two places and many people - Venice and Lisbon. In @veniceinabottle II the bottle is filled with the sky. The sky mirrors the water in every way possible. I (want to) connect places. Millions of people. (In)side and (out)side. Of me, of places. We are (with) places. In @veniceinabottle the bottle is the needle and the water is the thread. In @veniceinabottle WE are the biggest patchwork in the world. What is communicating? What is language? What is linking? What is living? What is belonging? What is being? What is…
The other?
