Pack Your Suitcase – Bridgeport’s Art Trail Headed To Venice, Italy – How Others Look At Us

Bridgeport’s burgeoning art scene, led by our home-grown City Lights’ Art Trail, is crossing the Atlantic to bella Italia next week and specifically Venice: romance, the grand canal, gondolas, Adriatic Sea, serpentine streets, Piazza San Marco, dining near midnight. Yes, the culinary culture digests late after a large lunch, the custom Mediterranean nap, to reload the pleasure center.

(The good news: restaurants open earlier for the tourists.)

The food will blow your hair back. For those of us whose hair grew back into our scalps, just imagine.

City Lights leader Suzanne Kachmar reached out to OIB about our local artists showcasing a unique canvass across the way via suitcases.

We will do our best to unlock regular reports to the suitcase artistry.

A suitcase art exhibit featuring Bridgeport Art Trail artists presents a different perspective than the common narrative that people in other countries may have about people in the United States, formed from popular culture and media.

Bridgeport’s involvement in this extraordinary opportunity would not have happened if not for the vision, energy and open heart of Peter Hopkins, director of the SHIM art network. Executive director of City Lights/Bridgeport Art Trail expresses her gratitude: “Peter Hopkins has opened the gate to the global art world! It’s a fabulous opportunity for the artists and an invigorating curatorial challenge.” The concept for the Bridgeport exhibit is a suitcase show, all work can be transported by suitcase, by the artists traveling to Venice to install the work, enjoy Venice and the Biennale. There will be daily videos and reports posted to the Only in Bridgeport site https://onlyinbridgeport.com/wordpress/  and the Bridgeport Art Trail Facebook page.

Artists and their work will arrive by August 30 and begin installing at the Palazzo Pisani. “…It’s like going on a family vacation, with our Bridgeport Art Trail family, most of the artists in the exhibit are coming over!” The Venice exhibit is supported and organized by City Lights/Bridgeport Art Trail https://bridgeportarttrail.org /, invited by Peter Hopkins artist/director of SHIM Art Network https://www.shimartnetwork.com/   SHIM is the lead organizer and curator of an entire floor of art at the Palazzo Pisani-Revedin in Venice’s centrally located Campo Manin.