interventions: THE LAGOON
In the beginning, safety was the key reason people settled on the islands of the Venetian lagoons. People were fleeing from barbarians on the mainland.To build on the marshy soil, they drove wooden pylons into the ground. Then, they installed stone foundations to build on. It seems almost impossible, but the ingenious transplants found a way. Between the fifth and the thirteenth century AD, from the fall of Rome to the stirrings of the Renaissance, the politics of Europe was monarchical and hierarchical, feudal, brutal and unfair. Throughout this exact period, Venice played a role in keeping democratic tendencies alive. Venice flourished in the so-called ‘Dark Ages,’ economically and intellectually, with a system of government that often fell into oligarchy and sometimes toyed with autocracy, but which nevertheless kept the best traditions of Greek and Roman democratic citizenship alive.
Stephen Stockwell from The Secret History of Democracy
unsanctioned intervention, Venice, Italy, 2022
materials: acrylic paint, oil stick, acid-free ink, printed image, acid free paper (19 X 26)
