From 31 May to 6 June, the BIENNALE will provide the backdrop for a camp hosting 16 young international artists, who have been chosen, through an online competition, by a special jury made up of nothing but artists from Italy’s seven leading artist-run spaces.
In true corsair style, the PIRATE CAMP will also – for the very first time – break the well-entrenched rule that outlaws camping in the lagoon!
The Pirate Camp is a project created by artists to help artists, says the man behind the project, Brice Coniglio – the captain of CONIGLIOVIOLA – whose surname means “rabbit” in Italian, explaining the operation’s meaning: “Like international trade fairs and major exhibitions, art biennials force young people to invest often large amounts of money in travel and lodging. That’s why we came up with the idea of a pirate camp that would enable young artists to stay in Venice for nothing, while at the same time providing a platform for encouraging an exchange of experiences, generating new partnerships and creating a real international network”.
The Pirate Camp is primarily a work of art in its own right: a metaphorical representation of being midway between the land that belongs to the “system” and the sea that is the domain of the “pirates”, an essential condition for contemporary artists, a status of extra-territoriality that becomes a privileged vantage point for observing and representing the world”.
The Stateless Pavilion, as the first PIRATE CAMP has been dubbed, aims to focus attention on the topic “extra-territoriality” as a condition typical of artists that comes to expression in the project’s two key figures: the pirate and the camper.The status of not-belonging-to-places, inhabiting places while remaining outside the concept of territorial ownership, becomes a status of statelessness, of not-belonging-to-any-state, in the context of the Venice Biennale, whose mainstay is the fact that its every edition is built on an offering – and a reiteration – of the representation of national identities, by “national” pavilions.
For these same reasons the project, notwithstanding the last-minute asylum offered by the Italian Pavillon, makes a statement of physical detachment from it, choosing a secret island as location.
Latest news post
KANINCHEN-HAUS with the support of Fondazione Cariplo invites young curators, critics, and theorists from different disciplines to submit contributions for the publication of the Pirate-Camp READER, a volume on the theoretical issues related to the project “Pirate-Camp / the Stateless Pavillion” (www.pirate-camp.org) an itinerant artists campsite whose 1st edition took place during the last Venice [...]
June 1st, Pirate Camp crashes into Giardini to receive the embrace of Police and Carabinieri. Pirate Camp seems to be the first official event of Biennale to be at same time abusive!!! see the pictures here: http://videodrome-xl.blogautore.repubblica.it/category/pirate-camp/
Differentlty from what we announced before, the Pirate denn will remain striclty secret. The action of the pirates will be focused on constants and sudden invasions of the places devoted to the Biennale. To follow our daily attacks just subscribe to the facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=148199165253247 Diversamente da quanto preannunciato il covo dei pirati rimane [...]
From here you can download latest press release: PRESS RELEASE – english – May 26th COMUNICATO STAMPA – italiano – 29 Maggio (aggiornato)
//versione italiana in fondo We wish to announce the last-minute inclusion of CONIGLIOVIOLA’s PIRATE CAMP within the official program of the 54th Venice Biennale regarding national participations. Such news might sound paradoxal and controversial, considering our role as pirates promoters of the Stateless Pavillon. However, such inclusion, to all of us who have been working 1 [...]
the PIRATE CAMP crew is glad to annouce the list of the 16 artists that will take part to 1st edition of PIRATE CAMP @ 54 VENICE BIENNALE “THE STATELESS PAVILION” Maddalena Fragnito & Emanuele Barga Italy Alexander Storey Gordon UK Lukasz Gronowski Poland Klara Hobza Czech R./Germany Daniel Hoflund Sweden/Germany S. Levack & J. [...]
