Tourism Is The Work Of The Devil (Route)

Tourism Is The Work Of The Devil (ROUTE only, no sound)

Adam Patterson

8.56 min (WALKING - PAUSE TO EXIT) The work starts at Rialto Bridge (southern side) and ‘leads’ you through to Palazzo Pisani S. Marina just off Campo Santa Marina, once home to the Diaspora Pavilion. Follow the route as indicated on the map, accompanied by the sound track.

The Streets of Venice, in accommodating the cultural representations of nation states, become an ordered collected archipelago of disparate cultural thought emerging in a globalised hierarchy. 'Tourism is the Work of the Devil' offers the guidance and narration of a critical de-colonial voice in navigating the islands of thought as presented within Venice. In its resentful tone, the true motives of the disembodied tour guide become uncertain, drifting from commercial observation of the site to critical dismantling of the universalist values that underpin the structure of the Biennale. In such a tour, the visitor is led astray, not from the site but instead, towards an uncomfortable reality.

Voice and texts: Adam Patterson

Additional texts and sounds:

Aimé Césaire, ‘Notebook of a Return to my Native Land’, in ‘Aime Cesaire: A Voice for History’, directed by Euzhan Palcy (1994; France, Senegal: Saligna and So On, 2008).

Mighty Gabby, ‘Jack’ (Barbados: Ice Records, 1982).

Derek Walcott, ‘Nobel Lecture: The Antilles: Fragments of Epic Memory’, Nobel Prize, Nobel Media AB 2014.

Yahya M. Madra, ‘Imperialism and Transnational Capitalism: The Venice Biennale as a “Transitional Conjuncture’, in Rethinking Marxism (2006).

George Lamming, Introduction to ‘In the Castle of My Skin’. (UK: Penguin Classics, 2016).

Derek Walcott, interview by Bill Moyers, ‘Derek Walcott – A Conversation With the Great Caribbean-Born Writer’, World of Ideas, November 1, 1988.

‘Edouard Glissant: One World in Relation’, directed by Manthia Diawara (2006; NY: Third World Newsreel, 2006).

Adam Patterson’s work emerges from imagining strategies of resistance in the face of neo-colonial encounters and desires that affect Barbados and the Caribbean region. Regarding the processes by which ‘paradise’ shapes the Caribbean, the artist is invested in subverting the lens and language of such, in service to the region’s self-image.

Sound Works © The Artists and Contributors Texts © The Artists, Contributors and Curator Website © Sonic Soundings / Venice Trajectories

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