Marie Schumann on her residency at Palazzo Trevisan degli Ulivi
Marie Schumann’s Public Space Installation:
«Unfolding Space»
Textile Installation on the Island of Giudecca from 26 March to 1 April 2022
Visual artist Marie Schumann was awarded a three-month residency at Palazzo Trevisan degli Ulivi in Venice in autumn 2021. The programme of Pro Helvetia in Venice aims to foster meaningful and long-term relations with the communities of the city through urban cultural artistic practices. The residency enables artistic research focusing on the city’s contemporary cultural and social situation, urban communities and transformation processes.
Read Marie Schumann’s experiences on her stay in the Swiss cultural hub «Palazzo Trevisan»:
«Researching on textiles in relation to architecture in public spaces on the one-of-a-kind island of Venice was an unexpected, inspiring, and enriching experience. Living and working in the Swiss culture hub “Palazzo Trevisan”, where several events take place, including events that are related to the Venice Biennials, meant experiencing a melting pot of social interactions but in a very specific cultural field. On the one hand, you’re in between the worlds of the culture bubble that is created around the Biennial every year. But on the other hand, you’re going out and meeting local people. This meant leaving the bubble and trying to understand all-day life on an island that is overwhelmed by tourists, historical ideals frozen in time and economic pressures.
Following the threads through time and space led me to experience the history of weaving in different textile companies and archives (Bevilacqua La Masa, Archivio Storico – Rubelli). Studying the architecture and the textile presence outside reminded me very much of the baroque use of textiles and folds. I could see them to „infinity, fold upon fold, fold after fold“.*
After some time, I started to work with this in my own practice and translated the architectural interventions into wall folds, textile structures and dimensions. Those works will be brought back outside in the form of a textile installation in public space in March 2022, with the goal of interweaving some social aspects. Having been part of a local crocheting group and working on thread work together brought other aspects of the material as well as island realities to my attention. The experience was very enriching.»
– Marie Schumann
* Deleuze, Gilles. Die Falte. Leibniz und der Barock. Suhrkamp Verlag. Frankfurt am Main. 2020. p.11.
Photograph: © Marie Schumann | «Wall folds»
