Venice International University has celebrated its 10th anniversary. Since activities started in December 1995, we have aimed at developing a research and training project that goes beyond straightforward curricular activities, by creating a space for interaction between different cultures and means of communication. Over the years our activities have multiplied.

Besides the undergraduate program, which is open to students from the various universities that are part of the consortium, today Venice International University is home to research and training structures that have asserted themselves on the international scene: the TEDIS center, for themes regarding competitivity and economic globalization, and the TEN Center, for themes regarding the economy of the environment.

In these ten years, we have never failed to underline certain key characteristics. Venice International University aims at consolidating a top-quality academic curriculum with an experience of creativity and participation that is often lacking in Italian universities. The cultural and artistic activities that Venice International University promotes constitute a privileged meeting space for people coming from extremely different cultural backgrounds.

Venice International University is an international institution, but not an “extraterritorial” project. The international character of the program develops around an interaction between the city and the territory. The Radar Project, of which this publication is an appendix, is a clear example of this interaction: Radar wanted to connect contemporary artists and Venice through the language of visual arts, to enable the city to be looked at and reinvented with new eyes. The billboards which have given color to the worksite hoardings of Insula for the last two years have shown a different image of everyday life in Venice, playing with passion and irony on some of the clichés that mark our city’s life.

We asked Boris Missirkov and Georgi Bogdanov, two Bulgarian artists who have already worked in Venice for the Radar project, to capture the route we have undertaken in a few snapshots. There is irony in these images; there is a classic taste for shots and a good dose of complicity with those photographed. There is also passion for what professors, staff and students do every day, and also a lot of entertainment. Missirkov and Bogdanov have captured a way of working and enjoying the research and learning experience that Venice International University pursues with persistency. Those photos are now hanging in the corridors and lecture halls of our University, as a reminder of the profound link between amusement and intellectual discovery, between learning and participation, between passion and identity. I am sure that these images will always be able to remind us how much innovation depends on our own ability – individual or collective – to renew the image we have of ourselves.

Stefano Micelli
Dean of Venice International University

VIULife came into being thanks to the European project Radar, of which Venice International University was the leader.
Radar formed a human lab of 29 artists to examine the concept of a European city and the common points existing among diverse cultures and different life-styles in the places involved, also attempting to overcome the gaps that could be perceived between the various social categories.

The Radar experience made us understand two fundamental things: that creative processes, even when they are experimental and not readily understandable, if they are open and not restricted to elitist circles, may become a stimulus for re-thinking about ourselves and relationships with others and with the spaces we act in; that even people who are outside the art system are positively affected by similar procedures.

VIULife draws inspiration from these concepts and is an extra-curricular activity on creativity for the students at Venice International University. The first installment of VIULife was held at the end of 2005, on the occasion of the University’s tenth birthday.

VIU invited the Bulgarian artists Boris Missirkov and Georgi Bogdanov, who had already created the large photographic billboards which inaugurated and closed Radar, for the purpose of their creating a series of photographic portraits of all those operating inside the institution.
The moments of ideation and organization prior to the snaps were inclusive operations, in the sense that the subjects portrayed could participate by making proposals and suggestions, besides deciding how to be shown. In this way, students, professors, researchers and staff – people who are even apparently far removed from artistic creativity – were able to follow the process and the many steps that transform an idea into a finished work of art from the inside.
The project also generated team-building work, favoring exchanges of ideas and a more profound acquaintance of the people who work inside the University, in all their so very diverse roles.
The final result: twelve large photographic billboards, printed on canvas, that show the university spaces inside the buildings on the island of San Servolo, relating study experience, research, teaching and daily work activities carried out at VIU in an ironic and, at the same time, accurate way.

It is an experience that – as often happens when objectives are pursued with passion – however demanding or difficult it may be, almost becomes a game.
And the creative process induced by the two artists was also a game – and much more than that at the same time: an open action that influenced all of those who were affected by it. Indeed: beyond the twelve images, which testify the internationality of the students at VIU and the splendor of the locations on the island, reflected almost as if through the filter of Alice’s mirror; beyond the authors’ irony and levity in narrating a fervid cultural melting pot in constant development; beyond the happy union between perspective innovation (obtained by digital monitoring) and a sense of beauty that is not so usual in contemporary art; yet, what really persists from this is the experience of creativity the artists transmitted to all those who chose to share it with them. We realized that this experience in many ways profoundly changed our lives inside VIU.

The vernissage of the project was planned as a moment of inauguration and inclusion. The anniversary celebration held for the University’s tenth birthday therefore involved students of various nationalities, who prepared and presented typical food and drinks from their countries of origin; visual artists who, as veejays, filmed and edited the images of the evening; Italian and international deejays and musicians who added sound to the event; light designers, who re-contextualized the island’s internal and external locations. In this event, Venice International University opened itself further to the city of Venice and to its residents and students, finally registering – although being on an island – the presence of over a thousand people.

VIULife: billboards was naturally only the first step in the dialogue between VIU and its students with artists, performers, designers, musicians and creative professionals. We hope this dialogue will be useful and lead to new discoveries, collaboration and a continuous assimilation of ideas, incentives and innovation.

Lorenzo Cinotti
Curator

The VIULife: Billboards project was promoted by Venice International to mark the 10th anniversary of the foundation of VIU. VIU invited the Bulgarian artists Boris Missirkov and Georgi Bogdanov, to create a series of photographic portraits of students, professors, researchers and staff of VIU. The project was conceived as a new way to experiment with university life, interacting with spaces in a creative way, and as a special way to communicate by narrating academic activities and projects through art and a creative process.

 

 

 

"[...] There is irony in these images; there is a classic taste for shots and a good dose of complicity with those photographed. There is also passion for what professors, staff and students do every day, and also a lot of entertainment. Missirkov and Bogdanov [the artists] have captured a way of working and enjoying the research and learning experience that Venice International University pursues with persistency. Those photos are now hanging in the corridors and lecture halls of our University, as a reminder of the profound link between amusement and intellectual discovery, between learning and participation, between passion and identity. I am sure that these images will always be able to remind us how much innovation depends on our own ability – individual or collective – to renew the image we have of ourselves"

Stefano Micelli, Dean of Venice International University (2005-2012)

 

Catalogue edited by Marsilio

 

• Photos for a Birthday by Stefano Micelli, Dean of Venice International University 
• The Experience of Creativity by Lorenzo Cinotti, Project Curator
• VIULife Revisited by Boris Missirkov and Georgi Bogdanov, the Artists

 

On VIU campus visitors can admire works of art by internationally renowned contemporary artists.

	Bořek Šípek On September 27, 2014 the sixth "Havel's Place" was unveiled on the Campus of the Venice International University.
	Pietro Consagra Pietro Consagra's "Double Bifrontal" sculpture was placed at the landing stage of the island of San Servolo on the occasion of the 54th Venice Biennale 2011.
	Kan Yasuda In 2005 Kan Yasuda gave a bronze sculpture on extended loan to Venice International University.
	Sandro Chia In 2004 Sandro Chia gave his "Babbo", a bronze statue, on loan to VIU. It can be viewed in the gardens on the Island of San Servolo.
	Fabrizio Plessi In 2003 Fabrizio Plessi together with Bisazza Mosaico installed a work entitled "The Four Evangelists" at the entrance to the Island of San Servolo.