Sylke von Gaza

Project "Il Nido", Basilica Santa Maria della Salute, Venezia 2017/18

“A Pilgrimage towards Equilibrium”

At the invitation of the Seminario Patriarcale di Venezia, artist Sylke von Gaza started creating the art project Il Nido. A Pilgrimage towards Equilibrium. The Basilica Santa Maria della Salute became the site of a contemporary art installation for the first time. The wandering nest is built from driftwood gathered piece by piece throughout the Venetian Lagoon. The large iridescent pearlescent eggs are made of Murano Glass executed with the help of Maestro vetraio Silvano Signoretto of Berengo glass furnace in Murano. The project is curated by the Swiss Renaissance historian Julian Bruno Vogel together with the architect and director of the Diocesan Museum of Sacred Art in Venice don Gianmatteo Caputo (for Venezia) and is supported by the Curia Patriarcale di Venezia. In April 2019, Il Nido continued its journey from Venezia, its place of origin, to Gedächtniskirche in the German capital Berlin.

Conceived for the Padiglioni Paralleli of the 2017 Venice Biennale, Sylke von Gaza's project Il Nido. A Pilgrimage towards Equilibrium took account of its surroundings, the public space and the environment of the Laguna Veneta and constitutes a new departure in Sylke von Gaza’s work. During countless exploratory trips to the Lagoon aboard a Sanpierota the artist has experienced the fragile equilibrium of the biotope of the Venetian islands. The installation Il Nido was built "hidden", inside the old observatory of the Seminario Patriarcale di Venezia. The large nest is composed of the products of the Lagoon, driftwood and Murano Glass. Its octagonal shape alludes to the ground plan of the adjacent votive and pilgrimage church of Santa Maria della Salute, which is connected to the seminary.

In October 2017, to coincide with the end of the 57th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia 2017, Il Nido appeared almost secretly but in plain sight on the roof of the seminary’s old observatory right next to the impressive skyline of the cupolas of the Basilica Santa Maria della Salute, a place with no public access. Conceived for its prominent location high above the Punta della Dogana, in the middle of the Bacino, that most public of Venice’s public spaces, the installation sat poised as if on a pulpit, visible from far away. Until the end of the year, only a few people were able to enjoy the view over the Bacino di San Marco together with Sylke von Gaza's nest.

Il Nido embodies transformational processes on several levels. Pilgrims experience a transformation and growing sense of inner equilibrium as they progress along their pilgrimage. The nest symbolises the point of origin. It provides shelter for the brood and an unseen space for growth and development towards strength. As a refugium, it hovers between vulnerability and protection and thus offers the potential for transformation. The fledgling city of Venice originated in the amphibian shelter of the Laguna Veneta and grew into the splendid Serenissima. What the nest is for the egg, the Lagoon is for Venice and the Church for the pilgrim.

Coming from the rooftop of the old observatory of the Salute, Il Nido took a short rest in the cloister of the adjunct priest seminary of the Venetian Patriarch, only to arrive in the very centre of the Basilica della Salute, in time for Easter, the Christian celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Throughout Lent (Quaresima), the preparation period for Easter, Il Nido was covered by white veils; half-hidden half visible. On Easter Sunday (April 1st 2018), the nest’s veils fell and Il Nido could be seen completely unveiled until the end of the Easter season and Pentecost (20 May 2018).

The Basilica Santa Maria della Salute is one of the most prominent Venetian churches, dedicated to “Our Lady of Deliverance” (“Madonna della Salute”), and was built by the Serenissima Repubblica di Venezia as a votive offering for the city's relief of the pestilence 1630. The Basilica’s architect Baldassare Longhena (1597 – 1682) verbalized two core theological concepts, origin & deliverance, in the tiny inscription  “UNDE ORIGO INDE SALUS MDCXXXI”, which is discreetly placed in the centre of the mosaic floor underneath the Basilica’s main cupola.

As a contemporary art installation, Sylke von Gaza’s Il Nido is referring to these two concepts embodied in the complex baroque architecture of the Basilica della Salute full of Marian symbolism. The symbolic number 8 hints at the resurrection (SALUS/deliverance) and is built into the octagonal ground-plan of the Basilica as well as the shape of von Gaza’s nest. Il Nido sits right above the inscription, in the exact centre of the space Longhena himself described as the womb of Mary (ORIGO/origin).

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