Helicopter landing in a women’s prison where the Vatican has installed its pavilion of the Venice Biennale international art exhibition, Pope Francis told incarcerated women on Sunday that they had “a special place in my heart”.
“Grazie,” a woman called. Others applauded.
Many women participated with artists in creating works displayed throughout the prison for the exhibition titled “With my eyes.” Francis, the first pope to visit – even if only briefly – a Venice Biennale, said it was “fundamental” for the prison system “to offer inmates the tools and space necessary to their human, spiritual, cultural and professional growth, by creating the conditions for their healthy reintegration.
“Not to isolate dignity, but to give new possibilities,” Francis said to applause.
Over the decades, countries participating in the Biennale — the the main world showcase of art nouveau – have used deconsecrated churches, former beer factories, water buses and various other sites to display their art, but this was the first time a prison was selected.
This made the project “more complex and more difficult to implement,” Bruno Racine, director of two Pinault Collection locations in Venice and co-curator of the Vatican Pavilion, said in an interview. But the setting is consistent with Francis’ message of inclusion toward marginalized people, he added.
The Vatican project received an overwhelmingly positive reception from the public, but it was not without controversy. Some critics have raised ethical concerns about the intersection of powerful institutions like the Vatican and the Biennale with the limited autonomy of imprisoned women. Others have suggested that the Vatican, in putting on the spectacle, was complicit in a penal system in which overpopulation remains a problem. serious problem.
Still others demanded that the pope seek pardon or at least a reduced sentence for all women incarcerated because they reacted violently to domestic violence.
“I don’t think the Vatican has the power to exert any influence on Italian justice,” Racine said of the idea.
Although the Vatican has not publicly responded to the criticism, Francis has always been outspoken about domestic violence, saying in 2021 that there was something “almost satanic” about the high number of cases of domestic violence against women.
He was also a strong advocate for prison reform, speaking out against prison overcrowding and often meeting with inmates during his travels.
On Sunday, Francis said the prison was “a harsh reality and that problems such as overcrowding, lack of facilities and resources and episodes of violence cause great suffering there.” But he added that prison could also be a place where people’s dignity could be “promoted through mutual respect and the development of talents and abilities, perhaps dormant or imprisoned by the vicissitudes of life.”
The Pope described his artistic vision to the artists he called to Sistine Chapel last year, asking them to “think of the poor and ensure that art penetrates the peripheries,” Vatican culture chief Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça said earlier this year. On Sunday, Francis told artists involved in the Vatican project that “the world needs artists.”
The curators, M. Racine and Chiara Parisi, of the Center Pompidou-Metz, the French museum, selected a handful of artists to work with incarcerated women to create works scattered throughout the prison.
One of them, a 1965 screen print with the word Hope in reverse, hung above the door of the prison canteen, where about a quarter of the roughly 80 inmates who agreed to serve as guides for the show meet the visitors for the first time. The screen print was created by artist Corita Kent, a former nun and social justice activist who died in 1986.
Lebanese artist Simone Fattal transcribed poems and reflections of incarcerated women on lava slabs lining a brick corridor: “I thought I was suffocating. » “I often think of my family.” “I am so sad.”
In another room were small, stylized paintings by French artist Claire Tabouret, based on family photos the women had given her.
Visitors only get a brief glimpse of prison life, but during the tour, a short film, directed by Marco Perego and starring his wife, actress Zoe Saldaña, shows the conditions inside in black and white: shared rooms, shared showers, little privacy. . Inmates and professional actresses starred in the film, Mr. Racine said.
This is the third time that the Vatican has participated in the Biennale: in 2013 and 2015 it was among the many participants at the Arsenale, one of the main venues of the fair. And for the 2018 Architecture Biennale, the Vatican built a series of chapels, “for believers and non-believers alike” it can still to be visited.
On Sunday, the Pope individually welcomed the inmates of Giudecca prison in an interior courtyard. Some gave her flowers, others put envelopes and notes in her hands.
Giovanni Russo, head of the Italian Justice Ministry’s prison administration department, told reporters at a Vatican news conference in March that the women who participated in the project were entitled to unspecified benefits. Although the Vatican Pavilion was unique, he said, almost all of Italy’s 190 penitentiaries had “art projects” of one sort or another, involving more than 20,000 volunteers.
This is not the first time that inmates at the prison have participated in major artistic projects. Two years ago, the French artist Pauline Curnier Jardin worked with inmates to make a film and painting a large common room where the women meet visitors twice a week. The walls are now a soft purple, decorated with leaves and stylized figures designed by the inmates during a series of workshops with the artist.
After the Biennale closes in November, the artwork in “With My Eyes” will be removed, Mr. Racine said. But Mrs. Curnier Jardin’s soothing additions will remain.
After the prison, Pope Francis celebrated mass in St. Mark’s Square.
Praising the “enchanting beauty” of Venice during his homily, he added that the city was also threatened by problems such as climate change, overtourism and “the fragility of buildings, of cultural heritage, but also of people”, which risk unraveling the city’s social society. fabric. City officials this week began charging a access fees towards the city, in the hope of deterring day visitors from coming on particularly busy days.
Many tourists hoping to visit St. Mark’s Square on Sunday were blocked by dozens of blockades around the area, as part of heightened security measures for the pontiff’s visit.
“I’m not upset,” Julia Suh, visiting from Augusta, Ga., said at one of the dams while watching Mass on her cell phone. “I’m very honored – this is what they’re supposed to do because of the increased security.”
