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Souvenirs of 14 Venice's replicas around the world.
6 embroidered white cotton hats, 6 embroidered black cotton bags, 5 polyester sublimated foulards, 14 vinyl printed white cotton shirts, 21 mixed metal printed brooches.



Polyester sublimated foulard, Costa Venezia - Venice themed cruise ship



The project aims to raise questions about the complexity of tourism and the current state of Venice, Italy focusing on 14 replicas of the city around the world  (Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Philippines, India, Japan, China, United States).
I produced souvenirs for each replica including Venice themed shopping malls, luxury hotels and casinos among others.

The price of each souvenir changed according to the level of the tide in Venice at the exact moment of the purchase. They were sold during Art Basel in Miami when the tight was extremely unpredictable and the city was under water.


    

Embroidered white cotton hat, 
The Grand Venice Mall, Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India.



Tourist in Venice, Italy wearing a vinyl printed white cotton shirt,
picturing The Venetian, Las Vegas, United States.




What is the Venice experience? Does documenting it correspond to living it? Is buying a souvenir equal to owning it?
What makes the real Venice different from a copy of it? Isn't the real Venice a shopping mall itself, just like the Venice themed ones in Istanbul, Dubai or Doha?
Most of Venetian souvenirs are made in China, bought by Chinese tourists and brought back to China as trophies.
What would the souvenirs of the Chinese replica of Venice in Macau look like?
Why does the “real” Venice allow cruise ships to pass through the center, damaging the wooden structures which sustain the entire city? Would Venice exist without tourism as its main source of income? Venice has 270,884 permanent residents and 20 million tourists increasing each year.
Venice is now – November 2019 – flooded. The tide peaked at 187cm with more than one billion dollars worth of damage.
St Mark's square is under a meter of water.
My mother asked me if I remember what we had left in the ground floor basement cause is now under water. At least it will be clean, she said. The city is in a state of emergency.