Maritime Industrial Heritage and the Venice Arsenal
The Heritage Partnerships Team is pleased to share this important new project.
Dr Pegram Harrison, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
Alice Purkiss, Oxford Heritage Network, University of Oxford
Prof Luca Zan, Department of Management, Università di Bologna
The Universities of Oxford and Bologna are hosting a series of high-profile of talks and events during the Venice Biennale 2023. The Biennale takes place in the Venice Arsenal, one of the most spectacular and important sites of maritime industrial heritage in the world. For over 1,000 years, innovations in manufacturing, accounting, management, and industrial practices that began in the Arsenal have spread throughout the world. This intangible heritage remains under-researched and ill-understood. Similarly, the site is only open to paying visitors for a high price during the Biennale (i.e., half the year), and otherwise these important heritage buildings remain completely closed to scholars and the public. This project will open up better ways of engaging with this globally significant heritage.
To do this, we are organizing a series of talks and events spanning the Biennale Architetuttura 2023. Already, we have been offered significant contributions in kind from various high-profile partners, including the Austrian Pavilion which is eager to provide space for our events. We are also speaking with other potential collaborators: the British Council (last year’s winner of the Biennale’s first prize), the Victoria and Albert Museum, UNESCO, Venice in Peril, and FAI (the National Trust for Italy), as well as scholars of heritage, architecture, management, and maritime history.
For details of the first workshop being held at Ca' Foscari University, Venice, on 24 June (including links to join online) see the website.
