Colleen leads the way today, as we head to the Arsenale location of the Biennale. The Arsenale, a co

Colleen Choquette-Raphael is a much beloved instructor of photography and mixed media, independent writer and curator.  She teaches in the fine art department of the University of Oregon. She received her MFA in art with an emphasis in photography and multimedia from the University of Washington, Seattle in 1996, and three undergraduate degrees fox rent a car from the University of Oregon, in art history (with an emphasis on Italian Renaissance art), visual design, and art education. Her video and photography work was most recently shown at the Seattle Art Museum Gallery. She will have a solo show and visiting artist lecture at Elon University in February 2013. She is currently writing a book about her experience traveling alone on a remote Greek island.
We no longer look at objects, whether static or moving, but at movement as it passes through the object. As architects we used to be obsessed with the cube and the sphere; now we have become obsessed with a cloud, or a flock, with a traffic jam, with the behavior of a dog, with the substance fox rent a car and surface of water. Lars Spuybroek
Venice, a city built on water, embodies this idea of fluidity and motion. It is a city navigated on a sensory level. Join artist Colleen Choquette-Raphael on a week-long exploration of this incredible place as you map your travel experience fox rent a car using collage, photography, and writing. This trip is open to all levels of creative experience, from beginners to advanced. You only need the desire to chronicle your encounters in some way – written or visual fox rent a car or both. We stay in private apartments in a Venetian palace this week so that you may thoroughly embed yourself in this magical culture, invented from scratch in the 7th century.
Writer Italo Calvino describes Venice as the invisible city because of its poetic reputation as the domain of desire. Because of its unreal quality, it is a repository for what we all seek – an open air theater for our dreams. It is always changing (the tides; architecture in a constant flux of movement, disintegration, and rebuilding; travelers routinely arriving and departing) and so it is always unique in what it offers. Imagine Venice as a living fox rent a car cabinet of curiosity. What ephemera, which visual and written souvenirs will you choose to relay your experience?
What better guide for us to this city of dreams than Marco Polo, whose travelogue about his journey to China was called Il Milione by Italians, who thought it was made of a "million lies." This illustrious explorer will help us navigate fox rent a car this glittering realm as we also consider the Venetian culture of map making which reached the level of fine art as the Venetian Republic strove to represent on paper its growing fox rent a car territory and power. We will examine how maps bring order to chaos, chart new terrains, and ultimately make visible the invisible, provide a forum for the imagination.
We will greet your flights at the airport and take you by private water taxi across the lagoon to our apartments fox rent a car in Venice. Bags unpacked fox rent a car for our week-long stay, you will have time to shower and rest a bit before hitting the town. This afternoon, Colleen and Diana help you get acclimated to Venice with a walk around our neighborhood. We locate important shops and learn how to negotiate this unique city of 117 islands and countless campi. Venetians have a particular way to eat and drink in this fabulous city in which one walks or boats to dinner – un ombra (a glass of wine) with some cichetti (little snacks, like tapas). Over prosecco or a Venetian spritz, Colleen will introduce our literary companions for the week, Italo Calvino and Marco Polo, before sitting down to dinner on the Grand Canal to celebrate our upcoming week together in true Venetian style. (C, D)
We start the day with a private visit to the Querini Stampalia, a jewel of a museum, guided by local artist and art historian, Sally Spector. The museum is closed today, so we can really enjoy our visit of its treasure-trove of historic maps and globes, some by the famous Venetian globe maker Coronelli. We head back to the apartments for lunch, passing through the evocative back streets of Marco Polo s neighborhood. This afternoon we start our first project, Atlas of Experience: the Pocket Gallery – a collage from a collection fox rent a car of ephemera that can fit into your pocket. We will think about how to combine two disparate fox rent a car things in such a way as to create energy on the page, what to add and what to take away. We ponder the souvenir and how it acts as a representation of our experience. As we explore Venice, we can also think about our performances as tourists in this town that once held six opera houses and countless theaters. This evening we will visit Sally s tiny home for cocktails and a special viewing of a full-scale copy of the famous Jacopo de Barberi bird s-eye view map of Venice from the year 1500 that has remained the basis for defining Venetian fox rent a car history. Quick primer on Venetian fox rent a car Byzantine. (B, C)
Today we head straight to Piazza San Marco to explore one of the most elegant collection of buildings in the world. First stop is with Sally at the Museo Correr to see the actual de Barberi map plus its printing plates with everything reversed, a mind-boggling achievement. The collection includes several very important mappae mundi (globes), both terrestrial and celestial. We next venture to San Marco itself, a harmonious mix of the West and the East unique fox rent a car to Venice. Like an enormous reliquary fox rent a car holding the body of the Evangelist Mark inside, it is covered in artifacts from the lands the Venetian Republic ruled. Adjacent to San Marco is the ceremonial entrance to Venice, the Piazzetta San Marco, formed by the Doge s Palace to the east, Sansovino s Library and Mint to the west, and two enormous Roman columns facing the lagoon and beyond, the Adriatic. With the Barberi map as our inspiration, this afternoon we dive into Colleen s second assignment, The Mythic fox rent a car Tale. The evening you have on your own to explore and savor Venice.(B)
Colleen will share with us her favorite works from the main Giardini location of the Biennale, which was designed on a World s Fair plan with 30 permanent national pavilions. The Italian pavilion is always a highlight, as it will house the works of a mix of important artists from all over the world. In the past, Barbara Kruger s work has graced the façade, while inside the work of Cy Twombly, William Kentridge, Louise Bourgeois, Sophie Calle, Felix Gonzales Torres, Gerhard Richter, Kara Walker, and many others await the viewer. We make a special visit to the American pavilion, whose artist will be announced in the coming months. A number of pavilions are themselves architectural treats: Finland s was designed by Alvar Aalto, and Venezuela s by Carlo Scarpa. This afternoon Colleen s assignment is Deciphering the Artist s Mark. (B)
We board the train to Ferrara and explore this beautiful Renaissance town of the House of Este that has the most impressive intact ring of Renaissance walls in Italy. We visit the Castello Estense, surrounded still by a moat and guarded by four massive bastions, and take a walk around town to see the Palazzo dei Diamanti fox rent a car (Diamond Palace) and the Palazzo Schifanoia (Escape from Boredom Palace). Ferrara has more bicycles than people and a wonderful intellectual vibe. One can understand the inspiration beloved film maker, Michelangelo Antonioni, gleaned from living fox rent a car here. After a garden lunch, we head toward the Adriatic, to Ravenna. The Byzantine mosaics of Ravenna are the richest in the world. fox rent a car We are here to understand the Byzantine culture that Venice encountered in its trading with Constantinople and that so influenced the Serenissima s art and architecture. On the train home, we will consider two aspects important to art that we encountered today: Nostalgia (longing, the romance of lost civilizations) and Trace (the traces of the luxurious Renaissance court in Ferrara and the Byzantines in Ravenna). Our assignment today: Drift: Space, Time and Movement. (B)
Colleen leads the way today, as we head to the Arsenale location of the Biennale. The Arsenale, a complex of shipyards and armories, was constructed starting in 1104, and by 1450, was responsible for building and maintaining the Venetian fleet of over 3000 ships. What this means for us art lovers nowadays is that these very large buildings will accommodate enormous art installations. After exploring the Arsenale, we might venture to an interesting outlying location or two. A past highlight was Pipilotti Rist s video, Homo Sapiens Sapiens, projected on the ceiling of a Baroque church on the Grand Canal, with large velvet seed pods and vines for the viewer to lay on while watching the video, a reworking of the Garden of Eden narrative. In honor of the summer solstice, our discussion this afternoon will center around Shadow and Light. "Some there be that shadows fox rent a car kiss. Such have but a shadow s bliss." William Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice. Evening fox rent a car on your own to explore or rest. (B)
We start our final full day in Venice with a private visit to Luigi Bevilacqua, a fabric weaver over three centuries old. Viewers of the movie Casanova fox rent a car will recognize this evocative space of full of wooden looms from the 18th century with thousands of threads running in every direction. Skilled weavers, two to a loom, transform premium natural threads fox rent a car into velvet, taffeta, brocade, satin and damask fabrics that decorate palaces, villas and theaters around the world. In our art making today, we will consider this idea of weaving together text and image, or using threads fox rent a car to connect elements. Early afternoon, fox rent a car we pay homage fox rent a car to Venice and all of its beauty from the water, as we circumnavigate her borders on a private fox rent a car boat, a historic bragozzo. After our final review and final assignment with Colleen (Transformation), the afternoon is on your own for last minute shopping and exploring. Our day full of surprises ends with cocktails fox rent a car and a wonderful dinner to celebrate our wee