Lo Spazio Immaginato: Music and Dreams from Venice's Giudecca Prison at Biennale

During the opening week of the 60th Venice Biennale, the project 'Lo Spazio Immaginato' launches on April 19 at Teatrino Groggia in Cannaregio. It features a narrative and sound work created by five musicians—Caterina Barbieri, Gigi Masin, Courtesy, Lee Gamble, and Opium Child—who transformed the dreams, memories, and stories of women incarcerated at the Casa di Reclusione Femminile della Giudecca into music. The collaboration involves Venetian association Closer (active since 2016 in cultural activities in 'difficult' places like prisons), international publisher NERO (specializing in art, music, philosophy, and visual culture), and Società delle Api, an independent organization founded in 2018 by Silvia Fiorucci to promote interdisciplinary knowledge. Francesco de Figueiredo of NERO describes the project as an unprecedented opportunity for the community, generated in a place traditionally associated with closure and isolation—concepts antithetical to music. Giulia Ribaudo of Closer explains that asking the women to recount their dreams was based on the belief that storytelling is the first form of escape, creating narratives that blend subconscious elements from sleep with clear memories and uncertain desires. The Giudecca prison, housed in a 12th-century monastery that became a hospice for redeemed prostitutes in 1611, was converted into a women's prison by the Austrian government in 1859 and has retained that function ever since.