This article was previously published in the special edition, VENICE (July 2019). For the 58th Venice Biennale, Cyprus is being represented by Christoforos Savva (1924-1968), an artist whose inclusion is packed with meaning. 2019 brings the 50-year anniversary of Cyprus being represented for the first time in the Biennale, an entry in which Savva was featured. It also marks 50 years since the artist’s sudden death. ‘Untimely, Again’ (curated by Jacopo Crivelli Visconti) is a

This article was previously published in the special edition, VENICE (July 2019). “I wish Giovanni would kiss me,” is the first line of Elizabeth Gilbert’s 2006 book, Eat, Pray, Love. This book was later adapted to the big screen, with Julia Roberts as the lead, of course. On the 6am flight to Venice in early June, it was this film that kept me from dozing off and giving my eyes the well-needed rest that they would have deserved after only two hours of sleep the night before.

This article was previously published in the special edition, VENICE (July 2019). I was, admittedly, a little nervous to write this piece concerning the Barca Nostra (Our Boat) at the Venice Biennale. Firstly, because I have never been to the Venice Biennale, or any biennale for that matter. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the general rule for reviewing something as subjective as a piece of exhibited work is that it is only accurate when one has experienced its impact

This article was previously published in the special edition, VENICE (July 2019). Let’s be honest, I barely remember that trip to Venice in October of 2009. I tell myself that it’s because it was a quick four-day holiday. I guess my family needed a few days to disconnect from the franticness of Rome. I do seem to have some sporadic photographic snippets of the city in my brain; although those might actually be more bodily feelings than actual memories. Upon reflection, I real

This article was previously published in the special edition, VENICE (July 2019). "In every home, someone is playing a musical instrument or singing. There is music everywhere." – Anon, Seventeenth Century It is very hard to walk along the narrow alleys or through the bright, little squares of Venice without hearing, in your mind, the most beautiful music. Be it from the forest of bell towers or the lilting song of the gondoliers, the city in the lagoon seems to sing a thousa

This article was previously published in the special edition, VENICE (July 2019). To call Venice a city of ghosts is painfully cliché. But what isn’t cliché about the famous floating city – La Serenissima, the ‘most serene’ city? As literature’s love affair with Venice continues doggedly into its sixth century, poets and writers persistently attempt to revive the lost romanticism of the crumbling coloured façades, the slow gondolas traversing the Grand Canal and the view acro

This article was previously published in the special edition, VENICE (July 2019). This year has seen Malaysia grace the Venice Biennale for the first time. As a Malaysian who has spent a long time away from home, the news came as a pleasant surprise. The story of the Malaysian Pavilion in Venice began with the 2018 elections. It marked a watershed in Malaysian politics. Prior to the elections, the presiding establishment had been wracked by a corruption scandal. In 2015, the

This article was previously published in the special edition, VENICE (July 2019). ‘Venice is like a city in aspic, wrapped over from a dinner party, where all the guests are dead or gone,’ utters an elderly blind psychic around the ninety-minute mark of Nicolas Roeg’s 1973 cult thriller Don’t Look Now. All milky-eyed and with silent footsteps in a peculiar patent green coat, she conjures the image of a city pickled in gelatine. It could also be the island equivalent of Damien

This article was previously published in the special edition, ALUMNAE (December 2018). MA 2008 Alexandra Morris has been working successfully in New York and Mexico’s art business world since 2010. After an undergraduate degree in History of Art, she completed a Courtauld master’s in British Modernism in 2008, attributed her academic writing skills and career-oriented mindset to her time spent at the institute. She went on to complete a Christie’s master’s degree in History o

This article was previously published in the special edition, ALUMNAE (December 2018). PG Dip 2008 Valeria Missalina Bembry began her career in humanitarian communications as an Assistant Press Officer at the international development charity, ActionAid, after completing her BA in International Relations. She later became a Peace Corps Volunteer in Madagascar where she taught English, trained Malagasy teachers in TEFL methodologies and organised recreational activities for at