2026 marked my 8th Venice Biennale and my 9th adventure in a city I feel is my other home. Throughout my trip, people asked me about the gap of time between my first trip to Venice in 2001, my first Biennale, 10 years later. and now 16 years after that. I have been visiting Venice now half my life and hope to for the rest of it. Why did it take so long to get into the rhythm of your favorite city, people ask. “Well, the first time I came to Venice, a pigeon promptly shat on me, we stayed in a convent, and I lost and then found my sunglasses a day later in the same place. I needed a few years to process all the cliches,” I now like to joke.

But really, I have made visiting the Biennale a part of my artistic and work practice, partially because there is really nothing quite like binging on international art, then sitting on the back of a vaporetto at night, observing the world and trying to process the human existence. Where else can you ride unlimited boats for 60 euros a week? Venice is pungent to the senses. It reeks of sewage in certain corners. The mosquitoes are vicious. Waste removal requires foresight and the toilets now cost real money at the station. But from the moment I see the boats downstairs sign at the airport, my heart accelerates and I remember all the effort it has taken to return to my favorite wonderland.

Things I will write about.

Es Devlin’s triumphant Homo Faber

Toilets – from Florentina Holzinger’s SEA WORLD to the station

Postcards – Oriol Vilanova’s moving “Los Restos”

And more…