Fotograf Magazine

For the 53rd edition of the Biennial in Venice (2009), Aleksandra Mir had printed a series of postcards (one hundred versions in a series of ten thousand, i.e., a total of one million postcards), that visitors could take freely from stands placed in the exhibition area, either to keep or to send to their friends and family. Postage stamps were available directly on the spot, at both the Arsenale and the Giardini, with the kind assistance of the Italian postal service, whose employees also installed two mailboxes on the premises, the contents of which were regularly collected. The visual style of the postcards was designed by a graphic studio, with all motifs taken from a commercial image service. They depicted a variety of aquatic scenes: beaches in the Caribbean, surfers on the crest of waves, waterfalls, mountain streams, Nordic fjords, famous bridges, offshore oil platforms and cities built on water. Not one of the hundred images featured Venice, but all were inscribed “Venezia”.