“Greetings from Venice! We have had a very busy week setting everything up. Our builder Brad Anderson of Homescape Builders came over from New Zealand and has had a great week building. When he arrived I don’t think he knew what had hit him! The room slopes a metre from one end to the other and the walls were also way out of plumb from top to bottom. Screwing into the wall was difficult as the concrete just crumbled. The building is 500 years old so there are a few issues to work around.

Thankfully, everything went very smoothly. Brad resolved the height differences beautifully and some pipes were cut out.

The masking and painting has gone ahead of schedule, and I had a great helper in my wife Karena. Now that the work is completed (apart from the ceiling fabric) there is definitely a presence when you walk into the room. The height of the stud and the reflections have created an imposing space. It will be a nice counterbalance to the other installations here. This week we will be adding some final touches: the lighting fabric will be installed on Wednesday by an Italian company that is taking care of this part of the project. I have also designed a seat for in the middle of the room, which feels like a little slice of divine inspiration, as there is nowhere to sit in Venice! You rarely come across benches here. Hopefully it will encourage viewers to take a seat and reflect upon what they are looking at.

We found out this week that the openings for the Palazzo Bembo exhibition aren’t being advertised, because they don’t want too many people to come. Apparently there were so many at the last Biennale that things got a little dangerous with the building. Even so, they are expecting around 2000 ‘very interested’ people to come to each of the four openings. After these, it will be open to the public.”