EMILY JACIR: Yesterday I spoke about a project I made for the 2009 Biennial called “Stazione,” which was a public intervention that was meant to take place on the 25 vaporetto stops, the vaporetto being the water bus line, the water bus stops, that runs through the heart of Venice. And what I did was I translated each of the names into Arabic and placed the Arabic names next to the Italian, creating a bilingual transportation route into the city. And what inspired this project was a two-year period of researching the history of Venice, when it was really interdependent with the rest of the Mediterranean, and I was interested in exploring the heritage, the shared heritage, Venice shares with the Arab world. So, for example, the very first book ever printed, mechanically printed in Arabic, was called the Book of Hours, and it was printed here in Venice—I think it’s 1514—by Gregorio de Gregorii. Another highlight from that research was the first mechanically printed Qur’an in the world was printed here in Venice by Alessandro and Paganino Paganini in 1537. And the glassblowing technique that Venice is so famous for was actually developed in Palestine. There are words in the Venetian dialect that come from Arabic. For example, where the summit is being held, the Arsenale, it comes from the Arabic word dar al-sina’a, which means “house of manufacture.” So it’s really, really, really an incredibly rich and layered history. We worked with the vaporetto company that’s in charge of all the lines and the bus stops, and they were really excited about the project, and they were going to fund the project, actually. And they had asked me to create a text to explain to tourists, to put on some of the stops why—what is this Arabic that is on these stations. And we were going to have an opening with the mayor of Venice. But then, shortly before the Biennale, the project was shut down.
AMY GOODMAN: By?
EMILY JACIR: The city officials. Somebody came to the head of the vaporetto company and told them that this was not to take place in Venice, which was really devastating for me because I think it’s a very important project dealing with a beautiful history, a shared history, a shared cultural heritage, and it was a secular project, which is also something that’s very important.
AMY GOODMAN: We’ve reported over the last few days that the Icelandic Pavilion was shut down when the artist—the pavilion was in an old church, hadn’t been used by the Catholic Church, I think, in something for like 40 years—turned it into a mosque. And the Venetian authorities said no.
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