Manchester School of Art students awarded the Venice Fellowships

The Venice Fellowships Programme offers students and researchers the opportunity to become actively involved in Venice Biennale and gain personal and creative experience and engage with the curators and and their vision of the British Pavilion.

The programme is an exciting opportunity to be a part of a wider arts community while connecting with new people, engaging with an international public and obtaining invaluable work-experience within a global exhibition and renowned arts and/or architecture biennale. Alongside this, Fellows are working on their own practical or research lead contribution to the cultural-creative sector. 

The British Council presents Feeling Her Way by Sonia Boyce at the British Pavilion for the 59th Venice Biennale, running from 23 April – 27 November 2022. British artist Sonia Boyce’s powerful exhibition explores the potential of collaborative play as a route to innovation.

Elysia and Lucy will travel to Venice to spend a month in Venice during one of the world’s most significant art event. 

Taking the regeneration of the Royal Gardens in Venice as a starting point, Elysia’ research seeks to explore the intangible and poetic rhythms of the city’s green spaces and the ways in which they are occupied, shared and transformed by the people who visit them.

 
Image: The Royal Gardens, Courtesy of the Venice Gardens Foundation

Lucy’ research is derived from the title of the biennale itself ‘The Milk of Dreams’. This name is originally derived from the title of a notebook created by surrealist painter, Leonora Carrington. Carrington used the notebook to record her illustrations of a strange reality turned upside down. Her research is concerned with the ethics of curating and forms of curatorial activism in various tangents of contemporary art and informed through dialogical aspects of curatorial aspects of exhibition making process. The research will culminate in a fully curated publication with a series of socially engaged workshops following the biennale.

Image: Exhibition view, Co-curated by Lucy Macpherson

The Fellowships programme was initiated by the British Council to strengthen the British Pavilion contribution as a platform for ideas and research. This programme aims to enrich the biennale exhibition, making it a reference point for universities and arts institutions. The Fellowships offers a way of viewing and experiencing art and architecture that provides a new outlook on issues of public and private space, artistic process and display.