Fun in Venice

Urs Fischer's Wax Man

It’s not all been hard work over the past few months.  For half term in October, I looked to see where we could get cheap flights to.  The choice was Milan or Berlin and we swithered as both sounded good.  Eventually, we plumped for Milan as it was further south and I fancied a bit of warmth for a few days and we took the kids to Venice for the first time.

Detail of Monica Bonvicini's 15 Steps to the Virgin

Friends thought we were mildly eccentric (a polite way of saying completely mad) to take the kids there, but it worked surprisingly well.  They weren’t as excited as we expected at going on the water buses, but they liked visiting the fish and vegetable markets and seeing the gondolas float past our living room window.  

The Saudi Arabian pavillion by Raja and Shadia Alem (and below)

However, much to our surprise, the highlight for all of us was visiting the Venice Biennale.  We all enjoyed it so much we spent two days going round the two main venues and managed to slip in some visits to other exhibitions too.  The kids took loads of photos, over 1,500 in the week, many of them of their feet.  

However, the cameras helped them engage with the art works and enabled them to spend time considering what was going on.  Particular favourite of us all were Urs Fischer’s giant candles of people.  These looked very spooky and the kids loved seeing ‘body parts’ lying on the floor.  They also enjoyed the Saudi Arabian exhibit, which I found beautifully thought provoking.  We were suitably grateful for the plasticine art work, which the kids spent ages playing with, giving me time to go and absorb the other pieces in the show.

Concentrating hard to take one of our 1500 photos!