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| Katia Margolis & Robin Saikia, founders of Vert de Venise Contemporary Art Photo: Cat Bauer |
(Venice, Italy) The artist Katia Margolis captures the bluish green colors of Venice in every medium she touches, from canvas and paper to hand-painted silk dresses and scarves. So, it was only natural that she turn her talents to the magic of hand-blown Murano glass, an art that Venetians have practiced for more than a thousand years.
The Venice Glass Week is an international festival that supports and promotes the art of glass. Now in its ninth edition, the festival takes place in different venues around the historic center of Venice, the island of Murano, and Mestre on the mainland. There is a broad range of settings, from glass furnaces and galleries to museums and institutions, and over 200 events to visit.
This year, the festival is entitled #TheMagicOfGlass and runs from September 13 to September 21, 2025, though many of the installations will be open much longer. You can see people wandering through the calli and campi of Venice, clutching colorful paper maps as they embark on a good old-fashioned treasure hunt for Murano glass marvels. For the digital among us, the map and program are also available online.
The Venice Glass Week is an international festival that supports and promotes the art of glass. Now in its ninth edition, the festival takes place in different venues around the historic center of Venice, the island of Murano, and Mestre on the mainland. There is a broad range of settings, from glass furnaces and galleries to museums and institutions, and over 200 events to visit.
This year, the festival is entitled #TheMagicOfGlass and runs from September 13 to September 21, 2025, though many of the installations will be open much longer. You can see people wandering through the calli and campi of Venice, clutching colorful paper maps as they embark on a good old-fashioned treasure hunt for Murano glass marvels. For the digital among us, the map and program are also available online.
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| The Rebirth of Venice. Homage to Carlo Scarpa. Designed by Katia Margolis Glass maestro: Oscar Zanetti Photo: Cat Bauer |
Vert de Venise Contemporary Art is an art gallery and open studio founded by Robin Saikia, Katia Margolis, and Leo Belo in 2024 that celebrates the beauty and traditions of Venice, and her role as a muse to her inhabitants and visitors.
Here is Katia Margolis in her own words about her project, A Woman is an Island:
My project for The Venice Glass Week 2025 explores glass as both material and metaphor -- fragile yet resilient, light and heavy, polished surfaces so easily broken into sharp edges -- qualities that reflect the contradictions of any human being. Women especially.
Working with Murano masters, I created female sculptures, glass "islands," and objects from discarded shards, transforming what was broken or abandoned into something new. For me, this act of reimagining is not only artistic but ethical: in a world fractured by war, violence, and injustice, vision itself becomes a battlefield.
The exhibition, A Woman is an Island, reclaims John Donne's famous phrase in reverse. Each of us is an island -- not isolated, but uniquely outlined and open on all sides to the shared ocean. Freedom lies in choosing, despite vulnerability, to remain oneself, and to take responsibility. Through fragments, I seek a path to wholeness -- and to the future beauty.
The aim of Vert de Venise is to build a bridge between traditional Venetian arts and crafts and contemporary art, a goal it achieves with A Woman is an Island. Katia Margolis lassoos the very soul of Venice herself from the surrounding sky and waters and hoists us up to the heavens.
Go to The Venice Glass Week for more information about #TheMagicOfGlass.
Go to The Venice Glass Week for more information about #TheMagicOfGlass.
Go to Vert de Venise Contemporary Art for more information about its projects.
Ciao from Venezia,
Cat Bauer
The aim of Vert de Venise is to build a bridge between traditional Venetian arts and crafts and contemporary art, a goal it achieves with A Woman is an Island. Katia Margolis lassoos the very soul of Venice herself from the surrounding sky and waters and hoists us up to the heavens.
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