In this second study of Venice, I focus on women's lives in Venice and include the Poem no. 24 from the "Terze rima" (1575) by poet, humanitarian and courtesan, Veronica Franco.

When crossing the Via della Libertà causeway that links Venice's centro storico with the Italian mainland, especially at night, I am overcome with melancholy as I enter this world built on water that seems to have been there forever, and yet, on closer inspection, shows distinct signs of its future disappearing. On my first visit to Venice in 1989, I wandered off into the far-off streets of the Castello sistieri. There, at terrace eatery looking more like a private home than a restaurant, the owner served me the most delicious and unforgettable pasta dish. She spoke no English and stood nearby watching me with a look of intrigue as I enjoyed the meal. There is the ebb and flow of the water, the milky green lagoon and the opaque turquoise canals. A world of mariners, travelling to and from the islands in gondolas, water taxis and vaporetti. In Venice, I stick to the outskirts and the islands, I stop here and there in the insulate corners of the city floating landscapes, where the eroding movement of time stopped seems to be eternal.

In the collection, Cities & Elsewhere, I focus on the immediacy of time, the here and now, the feeling of being there.

Slow Cinema Tableaux Mouvants: The Outskirts of Venice

In Cities & Elsewhere, a collection of tableaux mouvants, I draw on the traditions of the tableaux vivants of Louis XIV, Delsartean ‘Living pictures’ and the later poses plastiques performance activities, as well as landscape painting and early landscape photography. My work as a performance artist with Possession Arts in Johannesburg in the early 1980s further informs the live still scenes filmed in Cities. Our living tableaux such as Schreber’s Chicken and Rain, Steam and Speed were set on stage and drew on the transformation of everyday scenes and duration performances, inspired by artists such as Philip Glass, the Wooster Group, Elizabeth LeCompte, Spalding Gray, Benjamin Patterson.

In the first two pieces of Cities, the images present everyday landscapes with little or no movement and minimal sound: a door closing, the cry of a seagull passing, footsteps going by… In time, the counterpoint between film, painting and photography, the reference to everyday reality interchanges with references to other dimensions of reality. The tableaux vivants come about in this transformation to create a living narration of the still landscape into a choreographed gesture in real time. In this collection, Rina Sherman explores her love for landscape in a collection of urban and rural cine-poems. In the river of Heraclite's, the water never flows twice in the same way. So, here too, the movement of these landscapes are prolonged to the infinite (2017).

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On my first visit to Venice in 1989, I wandered off into the far-off streets of the Castello sistieri. There, at terrace eatery looking more like a private home than a restaurant, the owner served me the most delicious and unforgettable pasta dish. She spoke no English and stood nearby watching me with a look of intrigue as I enjoyed the meal. Then there is the ebb and flow of the water ever present and changing in the milky green of the lagoon and the opaque turquoise of the canals. A world of mariners, travelling to and from the islands in gondolas, water taxis and vaporetti. In Venice I stick to the outskirts and the islands, I stop here and there in the insulate corners of the city floating landscapes, where the eroding movement of time stopped seems to be eternal.

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Dans cette deuxième étude de Venise, je me concentre sur la vie des femmes à Venise et j'inclus le poème n° 24 de la "Terze rima" (1575) de la poétesse, humanitaire et courtisane Veronica Franco.

Lorsque je traverse la chaussée de la Via della Libertà, qui relie le centre historique de Venise à la terre ferme, surtout la nuit, je suis envahie par la mélancolie en pénétrant dans ce monde bâti sur l'eau qui semble avoir toujours existé et qui, pourtant, à y regarder de plus près, montre des signes évidents de sa disparition future. Lors de ma première visite à Venise en 1989, je me suis égaré dans les rues éloignées du Castello sistieri. Là, à une terrasse ressemblant plus à une maison privée qu'à un restaurant, la propriétaire m'a servi le plus délicieux et inoubliable plat de pâtes. Elle ne parlait pas anglais et se tenait à proximité, me regardant d'un air intrigué tandis que je dégustais le repas. Il y a le flux et le reflux de l'eau, le lagon vert laiteux et les canaux turquoise opaques. Un monde de marins, qui vont et viennent entre les îles dans des gondoles, des taxis aquatiques et des vaporetti. À Venise, je m'en tiens à la périphérie et aux îles, je m'arrête ici et là dans les coins isolés de la ville, des paysages flottants, où le mouvement érosif du temps arrêté semble être éternel.

Dans la collection Villes & Ailleurs, je me concentre sur l'immédiateté du temps, l'ici et maintenant, le sentiment d'être là.

On a walk through the outskirts of Venice, Rina Sherman stops here and there in the insolate corners of the floating city and its islands, where the movement of time stopped seems to be eternal.	Lors d'une promenade dans les faubourgs de Venise, Rina Sherman s'arrête ici et là dans des coins insolites de la ville flottante et de ses iles, là où le mouvement du temps arrêté semble être éternel.
Cities & Elsewhere – Villes & Ailleurs Tableaux Mouvants Rina Sherman In Cities & Elsewhere, a collection of tableaux mouvants, I draw on the traditions of the tableaux vivants of Louis XIV, Delsartean ‘Living pictures’ and the later poses plastiques performance activities, as well as landscape painting and early landscape photography. My work as a performance artist with Possession Arts in Johannesburg in the early 1980s further informs the live still scenes filmed in Cities. Our living tableaux such as ‘Schreber’s Chicken’ and ‘Rain, Steam and Speed’ were set on stage and drew on the transformation of everyday scenes and duration performances, inspired by artists such as Philip Glass, the Wooster Group, Elizabeth LeCompte, Spalding Gray, Benjamin Patterson. In the first two pieces of Cities, the images present everyday landscapes with little or no movement and minimal sound: a door closing, the cry of a seagull passing, footsteps going by… In time, the counterpoint between film, painting and photography, the reference to everyday reality interchanges with references to other dimensions of reality. The tableaux vivants come about in this transformation to create a living narration of the still landscape into a choreographed gesture in real time.
In this collection, Rina Sherman explores her love for landscape in a collection of urban and rural cine-poems. In the river of Heraclite's river, the water is never the same. So, here too, the movement of these landscapes are pronlonged to the infinite.	Dans cette collection, Rina Sherman explore son amour pour le paysage dans une collection de ciné-poèmes urbains et rurales. Dans la rivière de Heraclite, l'eau n'est jamais la même. Ainsi, ici également, le mouvement de ces paysages est prolongé à l'infini.

• IUAES 2019 Inter-Congress “World Solidarities” 27-31 August 2019, Poznań,29 Aug 2019

• Biennial Conference of the Finnish Anthropological Society 2019, together with Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Helsinki and the Finnish Literature Society

• Festival do Filme Etnográfico do Recife, 2019