The women's prison of Venice is located on the island of Giudecca, in a 12th century monastery that in 1600 was a hospice run by nuns for redeemed prostitutes and ended up giving its name to the street where the main entrance is located: calle delle Convertite . Today, between the old walls that surround a beautiful 6,000 square meter orchard, 82 inmates coexist, most of them with a firm sentence. They cannot see what is happening outside, but during the months that the Biennial lasts, until November 28, visitors will be able to learn about their life in prison thanks to the work and grace of the Vatican, which has installed the pavilion of the Holy See there.
The exhibition is titled With My Eyes and begins outside the prison, before the uniformed guards confiscate our cell phones and ID cards. There, on the main façade, the artist Maurizio Cattelan, who at the 2001 Biennale presented L a nona ota (a life-size sculpture of Pope John Paul II struck by a meteorite) has created a colossal mural depicting two visible bare feet. for everyone from a long distance except for them, who cannot go out and act as guides with a dress made in the prison tailoring shop in night blue and white, the colors of the uniforms of the guards who accompany us on the visit keys in hand.
The exhibition is curated by Bruno Racine, former director of the National Library of France, and Chiara Parisi, the director of the Center Pompidou-Metz, who have involved around twenty prisoners. At the entrance, before going through the heavy green door, they warn us not to ask personal questions. Silvia, Giulia, Paola and Marcelle accompany us, each with her past and her own sentence to serve and along the way they will read poems, they will be grateful that we leave prejudices outside and they will discover how wonderful a window without bars and with views can be. to the garden, where they grow typical vegetables from the area and aromatic and medicinal herbs that they use to make cosmetic products. On April 28, Pope Francis will visit them. “We hope you feel at home,” says Marcelle in the patio, the place where they go out into the open air twice a day and where a Claire Fontaine neon now hangs with the phrase We are with you the night, taken from the murals anonymous ones that appeared in the seventies in solidarity with political prisoners. “It makes us feel more accompanied, but in a few months she will disappear.”
The exhibition is the result of months of messages and confidences, such as those given to the Lebanese Simone Fattal, who has reproduced them on lava plates that run along the walls of the exterior hallway: “When I am sad I cannot be fragile because I cannot spill tears” or “I am aware of the woman I want to be.” Claire Tabouret has made portraits of herself or her family members from photos, and in the chapel dedicated to Mary Magdalene, Brazilian Sonia Gomes has hung colorful fabrics to remind the women who live there to look up. On Tuesday, they cried alongside viewers at the first viewing of the short film by Marco Perego and Zoe Saldana in which they are the protagonists. As soon as it finished, the sky opened and a storm broke out.
