Open Call

Hôtel-Dieu

School for Curatorial Studies Venice

No Funding

Free / No Costs

Venice, Italy

Eligibility

The name Hôtel-Dieu meant in the Middle Ages the biggest accommodation in town. It was free for the poor and the rich were asked to pay for their stay. These old European institutions were intended to host the homeless and the needy as well as travellers of any sort.

Number of Participants

Artists: Giulia Maria Belli, Alessandro Bevilacqua, Thomas Braida, Ornella Cardillo, Simone Carraro, Francesco Casati, Nina Ćeranić, Weichao Chen, Nebojša Despotović, Daria Dmytrenko, Jingge Dong, Bruno Fantelli, Greta Ferretti, Leonardo Furlan, Enej Gala, Bogdan Koshevoy, Giulio Malinverni, Anna Marzuttini, Alesssandro Miotti, Sebastiano Pallavisini, Anastasiya Parvanova, Edison Pashkaj, Barbara Prenka, Simone Rutigliano, Pierluigi Scandiuzzi, Mattia Varini, Francesco Zanatta.

Deadline

No deadline

Duration

December 02, 2023 - January 20, 2024

Meals

No meals

Public Programs

Exhibition

Languages

No languages listed

Program Description

Religious orders run them in a tradition of kindness. It was a place of hospitality and prayer, combined with a not so much hidden agenda of evangelization. It then also served as a hospital, but the idea of a single place reserved for medical care only, did not exist yet. You can call it a big medieval Inn, providing also housing. Only by the 16th century, admissions shifted slowly to the chronically ill exclusively. You might give a look at Michel Foucault’s writings to get, a maybe more sinister, but also clearer picture of how medical institutions were established throughout time. The philosophy of a Hôtel-Dieu, of innkeeping in the Middle Ages as well as the philosophy of a contemporary art gallery today however goes more or less like this: “The poor man is happy when the rich has his fun”.