Caribbean Contemporary Poets and Graphic Artists Moored at the Venice Biennale of Architecture 2018

Abstract

The Teatrino del Mondo of Aldo Rossi, a performance space set on a barge that could be reached by boat (1979-80), became an iconic metaphor for the first Venetian Biennale of Architecture. At the Venetian Biennale of Architecture 2018, this metaphorical representation was engaged by Caribbean contemporary poets Lasana M. Sekou and Charles Matz II and visual artists Cozbi Sanchez Cabrera and Jean-Ulrick Désert. In exploring ties that link the vessels of Caribbean contemporary literature and art to Venice, witness is the audacity of their opera, created while confronting intensifying natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes, and recalling horrifying unnatural conditions of Slavery and war. The artists participated in collateral events in which poetry or visual art intersected marvellously with Venetian idioms.