About Venice Agendas

Since 2011 we have involved 400 artists, curators, writers, film makers, critics and creatives, made 41 discussions and talks, 24 performances, 3 exhibitions and made projects in 19 locations including Venice, London, Athens, Tromso Norway, Bournemouth, Folkestone, Margate, Manchester, Bristol and Newcastle.

Venice Agendas creates a critical international platform for debate with informed institutions, artists, critics audiences from around the world. The project was founded by Bill Furlong and Mel Gooding and has featured at every Venice Biennial since 1999. Agendas grew out of audio arts, which began in 1973, the audio arts archive is now located at the Tate. Since 2011, workinprogress Clare Fitzpatrick and Terry Smith with Mark Segal have continued the series of topical, intelligent and informative discussions, talks, debates, events and artist commissions. Mel and Bill along with Jean Wainwright and Vittorio Urbani of Nuova Icona continue to support, mentor and inform the project.

Venice Agendas team

Lead Artist:  Terry Smith. Curator : Mark Segal

Project Development : Chelsey Browne.

Marketing : Chantelle Purcell

Interviewers and writers: Fari Bradley, Sacha Craddock, Vassiliki Tzanakou, Jean Wainwright

Advisory team

Tony Heaton OBE William Furlong, Jenni Lomax, Peter Jenkinson OBE, Vittorio Urbani and Shelagh Wright

HISTORY

AUDIO ARTS Bill Furlong and Barry Barker

A brief history of Venice Agendas, how did we get here?

Venice Agendas has featured at every Venice Biennial since 1999 first initiated by the artist Bill Furlong and the writer Mel Gooding. Since 2011 the artist group workinprogress, has continued the project. The 2019 edition will be the twentieth anniversary of a project that has brought together artists, cultural professionals and audiences through discussions, workshops, and symposiums looking at all areas of contemporary culture and politics.

Venice Agendas was developed from Audio Arts  In 1973 William Furlong and Barry Barker established audio arts as a cassette-based audio magazine. It provided a dedicated space for artists and art-world professionals to speak about their work in a free and unmediated way.

Since 2011 Terry Smith and Clare Fitzpatrick of workinprogress along with Mark Segal, Jean Wainwright and Vittorio Urbani have continued the project connecting ideas and issues in the art world with larger social issues affecting everyone in society.

In 2011 the theme was soundings, discussions and performance work. In 2013 we discussed the Alternative Art Scene. The 2015 edition Crossing Boundaries looked at identity and migrations as a force not only in the art world but in the world at large. The 2016 edition at the Architectural Biennial, called Access all Areas looked closely at access to public buildings both physically and conceptually. The 2017 edition The Contract, looked at the actual and social contracts between artists, galleries, museums and the public. In 2019 we launched the The Market and in 2022 our theme was Venice Confidential.

Venice Agendas has continued to encourage excellent working process and method, commissioning artists and giving them an international platform and exposure for their work. It has also been in the forefront of leading collaborations and connections between museums, galleries and institutions and connecting them with their international counterparts.

It has been our ambition to provide a forum for diverse and perhaps contradictory opinion on a whole range of topics that are both relevant to art and to society at large.

The impact of Covid-19 stretches out beyond the health crisis, 2020 saw many events including BLM, climate change and the inequalities endemic in society. Now we have a war in Europe. These issues require responses. Words matter, phrases, expressions matter, the accepted normal ideas are invisible, but fortunately there are people out there who are challenging and describing the way the world really is. We are seeking them out and sharing in our projects.

Venice Agendas is moving from an event based organisation into an ongoing commissioning and publishing project.