To coincide with the 61st Biennale of Venice, Irene Cattaneo brings her surrealist and magical sculptures to the heart of Venice, transforming a Venetian private garden into a captivating, immersive experience. Featuring new works by the artist, the garden functions as a contained, contemplative space — distinct from the surrounding city — where imagination and materiality converge in a dialogue between nature, sculpture, and dreamlike forms.

The Garden as Interior. The installation is situated in a private garden in Venice, operating as a space of containment rather than exposure. In this context, the physical landscape and psychological interior are in continuous relation, shaped through one another. Rooted in the intersection of emotion and literature, the installation builds on a previous body of work based on Baudelaire’s « Les Bienfaits de la Lune », which depicted the moon as a maternal force marking a transition into motherhood, while this current project shifts toward the entanglement of child and mother within lived perception.

Cinema, Memory. The project references the 1993 film « The Secret Garden », a work of personal significance and nostalgia, in dialogue with literary references and personal memory. Its themes of formative experience, the evolving relationship between child and adult, and the garden as a space of transformation inform the structure and perception of the installation.

An ode to nostalgia. Presented within the context of the Venice Biennale, the project engages with the musical association of minor keys—tonalities commonly used to evoke a sense of nostalgia and emotional recollection. The work functions as an ode to this state of longing, representing a way back to oneself. By utilizing familiar forms and settings, the installation prompts a visceral recognition rather than a distant interpretation, inviting the viewer into the “minor key” of personal and literary memory.