Modern Guliver | Tuğba Yazıcı
Venice’s canals, with another story around every corner.
Venice is a fascinating city! One article could never do it justice; there are simply too many layers. Its architecture, its food, the famous Murano glass, its festivals and biennales… After my previous piece on the Venice Film Festival, I wanted to take you further into the city this time, share a little gossip and explore the Biennale.
My Venice trip went something like this: a meeting, a screening, the red carpet, an event I had to get to… In between, phone calls, messages and “Where are you?” Wonderful dinners and long conversations…
When I am trying to get somewhere, I often get distracted by something beautiful along the way. That is just how I am. I take lots of photographs and, of course, end up a little late. In Venice, walking without stopping takes real willpower. Every corner offers another photograph, another story.
The Film Festival kept me very busy on this trip. Being involved in cinema, meeting new people and discussing projects is exciting for me. When you love what you do, you think you do not get tired. Of course you do; you just notice it a little later.
I admit it: this pace is not easy! Behind those glamorous, glittering photographs, there are real struggles. The simplest example? On this trip, each of us had two suitcases. We carried and dragged them along Venice’s streets, over its bridges and up its steps.
You know those steps. Now picture us!
I have a bit of a showwoman in me; I do not particularly like talking about the difficulties. So let us return to Venice’s enchanting atmosphere…
From the Festival Rush to Giardini
In the middle of all that activity, I also visited Giardini for the Venice Biennale. I am glad I did.
Because alongside creating, telling stories and developing your own projects, sometimes you need to stop and see what someone else has to say. Without having to respond. Without offering an immediate opinion, as you would in a meeting, or thinking about the next step… Just looking.
In 2023, I took part in an exhibition in Venice held during the Biennale period. My work “Umut,” meaning “Hope,” was exhibited throughout that time. I believe in mystical things. For me, Hope stayed in Venice.
This time, I went for the Film Festival. As long as Hope is there, the story continues for me…
Tracey Emin to My Own Performance
I even staged my own performance, inspired by Tracey Emin. You probably know her famous bed. In “My Bed,” she exhibited her unmade bed surrounded by deeply personal belongings. That work, shown at Tate Britain, even included used condoms. She brought a piece of her own life into art, with all its intimacy.
Tracey Emin, My Bed, 1998. Image source: Tate; © Tracey Emin.
My Bed image: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/emin-my-bed-l03662
I had prepared a special scarf collection for Venice. Works from my “Miami Women” series, exhibited during Miami Art Week and the Art Basel period in 2025, became scarves and traveled with me to Venice. I wore and carried them at Giardini as part of my “Portable Art” approach. My own little Tuğba Yazıcı performance…
You know, I love being free and thinking freely. When I create something, making my inner child happy comes first. If she is happy, I am happy. And when I am happy, it affects the people around me, continuing in a little butterfly effect.
“Portable Art”: two moments from Tuğba Yazıcı’s personal performance with her scarves.
Do We Have to Understand Everything?
One of the things I hear most often about contemporary art is: “I do not understand this.”
I think that is a very honest thing to say.
Sometimes I do not understand it either. Some works touch an emotion immediately; others make you stop and think. With some, you read the explanatory text, look again and still find yourself in the same place. That happens.
The British and South African pavilions were my favorites on this visit. In one, I found a bright world; in the other, works exploring human senses and functionality caught my attention.
There were so many different works… Some leave you standing there for ages, spellbound; others make you walk away quickly. It is a relief to remember that you do not have to like everything. After all, visiting an exhibition is not an exam in which we have to give everyone a good grade.
What really makes me think is how people can feel inadequate in front of art. As though we are expected to offer the correct interpretation the moment we stand before a work.
We could let that first encounter be simpler. Am I curious? Am I bored? Did it stir something in me? Do I want to stay a little longer?
For me, those are important questions too.
With my own work, I do not expect viewers to arrive at exactly the same place I had in mind. Sometimes what someone sees is very different from what I was thinking when I began. That is one of my favorite parts of the process. At some point, what you have created leaves you and begins a life of its own.
An Artist as a Visitor
Time has its own rhythm at film festivals. One screening ends and a meeting begins. Conversations sometimes revolve around a film, sometimes around the possibilities of a story that has yet to be filmed.
Naturally, my own work, ECHO and the new path ahead were on my mind too. When you live with a project for a long time, you do not think about it only at your desk. It comes with you when you walk and when you have coffee. Sometimes, while you think you are doing something else, it keeps working away in the background.
At Giardini, I was able to turn my attention to worlds other people had created.
Scenes from the Biennale: encounters with different materials, figures and spaces.
That is one of the lovely things about being an artist. Even after years of creating, someone else’s work can turn you into a curious visitor again. You wonder, “Why did they do it this way?” Sometimes you feel close to it; sometimes there is a distance between you.
I like moving between different forms of art. Painting, writing, cinema… A question I encounter in one appears again in another. An image makes me think of a story; a story shifts an image that has been in my mind for years.
So as I walked through Giardini, I also took a closer look at my own way of seeing.
During busy periods, we can find ourselves asking the same questions without realizing it. How will the project move forward? Who should we meet? What is the next step? All of that is necessary. But our minds need room for other things too.
Entering another artist’s world gives me that room. I do not have to leave with an idea I can use immediately. Sometimes refreshing my curiosity is enough.
I cannot say I spent as much time at the Biennale as I would have liked on this trip. Time was limited amid the Film Festival rush. There was more I wanted to see, and places where I wanted to linger a little longer.
And then there were the streets of Venice, waiting for me…
The Venetian Merchant in My Head
Let us return to the architecture and the slightly crazy stories Venice stirred up in my imagination.
Walking through those tiny streets, I imagined myself in the Middle Ages. The spies who must have lived here, the murders that must have been committed, the secret love affairs…
The streets are so narrow and the doorways so close together that it feels as though a hand could reach out at any moment and pull you inside.
narrow streets: doorways, shop windows and little passageways.
Then I imagined myself as a fat merchant. I must be a man; that is how he appeared in my head. If I am that fat, I must be wealthy too… And if I am a merchant, I probably have a little cunning in me.
But this man must have enemies too!
As I passed through those tiny streets, I felt afraid for the man I had invented. I worried that someone would appear around a corner and something would happen to him.
A little crazy, right? :))
But that is how Venice made me feel. While trying to get somewhere, I was busy worrying about the safety of a medieval merchant in my head.
The Architecture of Venice
in Venice’s narrow streets and canals between historic buildings.
And what about the architecture? I could not get enough of those buildings. Then I became preoccupied with a very practical matter: renovating a place here must be a challenge in itself!
How do the materials arrive? How are they carried? Just thinking about it made me feel faint. We struggled enough with two suitcases; imagine carrying marble!
The story of how Venice was built is as surprising as the city looks. Over the centuries, it developed on small islands in the lagoon. Many buildings rest on wooden piles driven into the soft ground. Layers of foundations above them support the buildings. Underwater, the limited supply of oxygen also helps preserve the wood.
Those magnificent buildings above, wooden piles below… You do not really think about it when you are looking at them.
While I was complaining about two suitcases, an entire city had been built here.
From Murano to Burano
One day, I also went to Murano. I spent a wonderful day among its famous glass, jewelry and shop windows.
Seeing glass take on so many shapes, colors and delicate forms draws you in. For someone like me, who falls easily for beautiful objects, every shop window offers another reason to stop.
I could not stop taking photographs among Burano’s colorful houses either. Wandering through those colors was a pleasure in itself.
A pause among Burano’s colorful houses and a canal view from the lagoon islands.
At the end of my Venice trip, I came home with plenty of masks, lovely jewelry and gifts I had bought to spoil myself.
masks and the colors of everyday life spilling into the streets.
Let us not even discuss how much the suitcases weighed on the way home.
I also made myself a few promises in Venice.
We will see… Can I keep them this time?
With love,
Modern Guliver
Tuğba Yazıcı
