Venice: Conversation Series III
Venice is one of the most visited and cherished cities in the world; its beauty, history and culture are celebrated globally.
In Venice: Conversation Series III, Leila Houston broadens her consideration of the relationship between people, place and history in this multi-layered work; exploring how communities can be shaped, empowered, fragmented and distorted by the arrival of newcomers and its perspective of them.
Continuing on from her previous video installations, which examine place and the essence of it, Venice. A Conversation Series III uses recorded discussions drawn from the heart of the Venetian community. Via interviews with friends and locals in the city, the piece draws parallels between the issues in Italy and Houston’s home in the UK, with discussions centred around cuts to public funding and the impact of this on a society.
Alongside visuals capturing the fibres of Venice’s environment, the work invites us to remember the truth of a setting that has been so embellished. Venice. A Conversation Series III considers how beauty, creativity and authenticity of a place will survive when a place’s economy threatens to become the place itself - rather than its foundation.
“Has it become a Disneyland? Do the visitors get what they should be getting from it?”
