Interesting links between Venice and Australia: a Biennial, the love (and the concern) for the sea, the openness to the new, a (sort of) vaporetto, the islands. In this case, Cockatoo Island, an island in the middle of Sydney Harbour, home of the 17th Sydney Biennial...

[it] Interessanti link tra Venezia e Australia: una Biennale, l'amore (e la preoccupazione) per il mare, l'apertura verso il nuovo, un vaporetto, isole. In questo caso Cockatoo Island, in mezzo alla baia di Sidney, sede della 17th Sidney Biennale...  

link: 17th Sidney Biennale  

txt: Introduction - the free guide of 17th Sidney Biennale (.pdf file)

Distance allows us to be ourselves, despite the many capacities we share. We are all the same, but different, and it is our differences that make us – according to the circumstances – beautiful, terrifying, attractive, boring, sexy, unsettling, fascinating, challenging, funny, stimulating, horrific, or even many of these all at once. All this is underlaid by our essential similarity to each other, often much greater than many care to acknowledge. More importantly, the idea of distance expresses the condition of art itself, which is to be of life, run parallel to life and sometimes to be about life. But for art to be art, it must maintain a distance from life because without this it has no authority. Art can reflect the sweetest or strongest of emotions and also represent the most threatening or traumatic events but, unlike in life, nobody gets hurt. And we do live at a time when our capacity for the destruction of both ourselves and nature seems to be unsurpassed.

video: Sydney Biennale pushes the limits - NewsOnABC on youtube