Curated by Nadja Romain and Amin Jaffer
Presented by Fondazione Berengo in partnership with the Victoria & Albert Museum at Palazzo Franchetti, Venice
17 April – 7 October 2024
Fondazione Berengo presents Welcome! A Palazzo for Immigrants, a site-specific solo exhibition by inter-disciplinary artist Osman Yousefzada in partnership with the Victoria & Albert Museum. Curated by Nadja Romain and Amin Jaffer, the intervention at the Palazzo Franchetti is a continuation of a body of work that explores themes of unity, movement and migration in modern society. The exhibition, running from 17 April to 7 October 2024, is in conjunction with the 60th edition of La Biennale di Venezia and responds to its central language of exclusion and immigrant displacement.
Yousefzada creates a moving meditation on modernity and migration using handcrafted textile works, printworks, moving images and sculptures in the historical Palazzo, converting classical grandeur into a surreal landscape where traditions meet, and the table is set. A central installation of textile fibre sculptures combined with handblown Murano glass features two large-scale plaits that descend from the Palazzo ceiling into claw-like roots that stretch out across its marble floor, while a table rich with an abundance of handblown glass objects each tell their own intricate stories, querying the domestic as symbolic talismans and tokens to create a vital dialogue between the artist’s heritage and the artisanal traditions of the Venetian lagoon.
“I'm thrilled to welcome you into A Palazzo for Immigrants,” says Yousefzada, “a series of works rooted in the domestic - anticipating more hopeful futures of us coming together, healing and crossing borders, in order to reclaim hostile languages associated with exclusion and other immigrant bodies.”
Through this new exhibition Yousefzada continues his artistic investigations into displacement, migration, class and climate change, interweaving these themes with new mediums and techniques that re-contextualize his artworks within the floating city, most notably through the series of handblown Murano glass sculptures which were made in collaboration with the glass masters of Berengo Studio.
Co-Curator Nadja Romain says, “The exhibition pays tribute to both Venetian glass and textiles, in a dialogue with Osman’s Pakistani heritage. Osman’s interest in the history of glass - which started in the Middle East - and the history of Venice in general nourish his reflections about the migration of cultures, commercial power and trade.”
“Yousefzada’s practice casts light on displacement and dispossession, fundamental aspects of the immigrant experience,” notes Co-Curator Amin Jaffer. “In Venice, a place renowned for its production of glass and textiles, his works take on a different dimension given the city’s traditional role as a gateway to the East and an entrepôt of exotic goods and people. The significance of the exhibition is underlined by the ongoing immigrant crisis in Europe today.”
The work presents the natural evolution of ideas Yousefzada first explored within his 2022 exhibition What Is Seen and What Is Not, a solo show originally commissioned by the British Council in partnership with the V&A and the Pakistan High Commission as part of the British Council’s festival season Pakistan/UK: New Perspectives - The 75th anniversary of Pakistan’s independence.
About Osman Yousefzada
Osman Yousefzada is a British-Pakistani artist and writer, born in Birmingham UK, whose work engages with the representation, rupture, and reimagining of the immigrant experience. His work incorporates textiles, print-making, installations, sculpture and performance. Yousefzada has shown at international institutions including: Whitechapel Gallery, London; Ikon Gallery, Birmingham; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio; Ringling Museum, Florida; Lahore Museum, Pakistan; and Design Museum, London. Lahore Biennale, Pakistan and Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh.
Recent solo shows include; Queer Feet (2024) at Charleston House, Embodiments of Memory (2023) at the Ceramics Biennale, Potteries Museum in Stoke on Trent and More Immigrants Please (2023) a nationwide series of billboards with Artichoke. His large-scale series of solo interventions What Is Seen and What Is Not at London’s V&A in 2022, was commissioned by the British Council in partnership with the V&A. In May 2024 he opens the prelude to Bradford City of Culture 2025 with a solo show at Cartwright Hall.
He is a visiting Professor of Interdisciplinary Practice at the Birmingham School of Art, BCU, a visiting Fellow at the Jesus College, Cambridge University and a Research Practitioner at the Royal College of Art. Yousefzada is also the author of The Go-Between: A Memoir of Growing Up Between Different Worlds (2022), a coming-of-age story described by Stephen Fry as ‘one of the greatest childhood memoirs of our time’.
About Nadja Romain
Nadja Romain is the founder of Lo Studio – Nadja Romain, an innovative interdisciplinary and multifunctional organisation and space which encourages collaborations between contemporary artists, designers, and artisans. As an artistic director, film and art producer, Nadja has collaborated with established and emerging artists including Ron Arad, Matthew Barney, Harmony Korine, Chila Burman, Isaac Julien, David Lynch, and Jonas Mekas. She is the founder of Art Action Change, a charity dedicated to social progress and education through the arts, whose flagship projects are Ilya and Emilia Kabakov’s The Ship of Tolerance, and WeRtheFuture, a children’s think tank in partnership with Montessori. Nadja was a special advisor to Women for Women International, which provides a broad array of vital support and education for women in eight countries around the world that have felt the devastating effects of conflict. She also sits on the advisory board of the platform Decolonising Fashion and Textiles at the Center for Sustainable Fashion at London College of Fashion. In 2020, Nadja co-curated the Fondazione Berengo exhibition Unbreakable Women in Glass, which was awarded the Bonham’s prize for best exhibition during the Venice Glass Week. In the same year she moved to Venice and launched her online platform Everything I Want, an online boutique specialising in limited editions created by artists and artisans in collaboration. She is the artistic director of the cultural program at the Experimental group and an ambassador to environmental UK Charity Platform Earth.
About Amin Jaffer
Dr. Amin Jaffer is the Director of The Al Thani Collection, an encyclopedic holding of more than 5,000 works of art spanning millennia, representing the vision of His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah Al Thani. Previously Senior Curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), London, and International Director of Asian Art at Christie’s, Jaffer has authored and edited a number of works including Furniture from British India and Ceylon (V&A, 2001), Luxury Goods: the art of the Indian cabinet- maker (2002) and Made for Maharajas: A Design Diary of Princely India (2006). Jaffer was co-curator of the V&A’s blockbuster exhibition Encounters: The Meeting of Asia and Europe, 1500–1800 (2004) and Maharaja: The Splendour of India’s Royal Courts (2009) and was co-editor of the associated books. He edited Beyond Extravagance: A Royal Collection of Gems and Jewels (2013, second edition 2019) and co-curated the exhibition From the Great Mughals to the Maharajas: Jewels from the Al Thani Collection at the Grand Palais, Paris, and the Palazzo Ducale, Venice (2017). In 2018 he curated a double exhibition in the Forbidden City, Beijing, Treasures from the Al Thani Collection, and edited the associated publications. Working with Martin Chapman, he co-curated East Meets West: Jewels of the Maharajas from the Al Thani Collection at the Legion of Honor Museum, San Francisco (2018–2019). In 2019 he curated Man, God and Nature in the Ancient World: Masterpieces from the Al Thani Collection at Tokyo National Museum. Jaffer oversaw the creation of the Al Thani Collection museum space at the Hôtel de la Marine, Paris, which opened to critical acclaim in November 2021. Amin Jaffer is Artistic Director of the Islamic Arts Biennale, to be held in Jeddah in 2025.
About Fondazione Berengo
Fondazione Berengo was founded as a leading institutional voice to introduce glass to the world of contemporary art. An extension of Adriano Berengo’s original vision which began with his Studio in Murano in 1989, the foundation works to provide a platform revitalizing the centuries-old traditions of Venetian glass while also working to foster a vibrant community of contemporary art through innovative collaborations and partnerships. The Fondazione Berengo has been responsible for many of the leading exhibitions of art in glass in Italy over the last few years, including a solo show of the Belgian artist Koen Vanmechelen at the Uffizi Galleries in Florence (Seduzione, 2022), the first solo show of Tony Cragg in Murano and the first exhibition dedicated to his use of glass (Tony Cragg - Silicon Dioxide, 2021-22), and the latest exhibition of Ai Weiwei in Venice at the Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore (La Commedia Umana - Memento Mori, 2022). https://fondazioneberengo.org/
About the V&A
The V&A is a family of museums dedicated to the power of creativity— its power to entertain and move, to enrich lives, open minds and change the world. The V&A celebrates and shares that power through a programme of exhibitions, events, educational and digital experiences, a collection of 2.8 million objects, and through its support for new works and commitment to conservation, research and sustainable design. Together, its work tells a 5,000-year-old story of creativity, helping to advance cultural knowledge everywhere, and inspiring the makers, creators and innovators of today and tomorrow. The V&A is always working to broaden its audiences so that everyone can be part of the V&A – because the V&A and the power of creativity belong to all. https://www.vam.ac.uk/
Exhibition information
Welcome! A Palazzo for Immigrants
Osman Yousefzada
Curated by Nadja Romain and Amin Jaffer
17th of April – 7th of October 2024
Fondazione Berengo – Palazzo Franchetti
San Marco, 2847, Venice
Opening Times:
10:00 – 18:00 (except Tuesdays and public holidays)
Or by appointment
Free Entry