All the futures are one and the same

China is getting stuck into Kenya at a rapid pace and not just on a socio-economic level, through investments and projects for for “cooperation and development “ so much as also, above all, on a symbolic level. Although ultimately this invasion –, so much more radical beyond Venice, was not definitive: Kenya renounced naming this place, full of Chinese artists, as it’s pavilion. Result: a lose-lose situation.

On the other hand the “Muslim” world is becoming noticeably more present in the West. Not just on a media level but also, and in particular, on a personal level. This coexistence within a multicultural environment is increasingly more evident and urgent, particularly in countries or societies that are historically mono-cultural.

And while in the world (and in Venice) these arrangements are discussed, tinged with a colonial past (and present), the origin and seed for this whole show, the future seems set to follow a similar course, one in which possibly only the actors will change. The case is that this Biennale, from afar, doesn’t seem so lost: to talk of futures of the world, in reality is to talk of only one, the future we are capable of finding (or not) together.

Because when all is said and done, if we collide with an infinite number of possibilities, is this lack of definition not precisely the only thing we merit? That, as animals of the past, we are incapable of dealing with more than this, while breathing in a present that falls out of date as we speak?

Reflections aside, we leave you, on this final Monday of the month, with a video that refers to a project that was but is no longer: the Mosque in the old Church of Santa Maria della Misericordia, a project sponsored by the Icelandic Pavilion which far from generating controversy or discussion was accepted with so much ease by the Muslim community of Venice that the municipal authorities decided to close it having verified it had become a place of worship. We don’t know if the situation got out of hand or if it was the best thing that could have happened, the simulacrum becoming real. Now all that is left is a record, so we leave you with a video as a reminder: