Ospite In Laguna is a project conceived by Vanessa Milan and Francesca Cattoi, which questions the concept of hospitality in relation to the artistic practices of the Atelier Vanessa Milan in Venice.
Hospitality presupposes a place to host; it presupposes a guest and someone who hosts (in Italian, in fact, the same word is used); it presupposes rules of coexistence that both must share and, if necessary, improve or question. The acronym that derives from its name, OIL, inspired us to build the structure of the project. “Oil” in English means oil and petroleum, two substances that do not mix with water – the water of Venice – and remain separate, even though they are in the same environment.
We were saying, a place: the window of the Atelier Vanessa Milano on Dorsoduro, a space, not very large, but prestigious, being Venice; a guest, Vanessa Milan and a guest, the artist to be invited; of the rules: the guest must use an artistic technique other than engraving, a technique in which Vanessa excels and which is the basis of the production exhibited in the atelier/shop. The works of the two artists are compared in the same space, creating references, but remaining separate and easily distinguishable by the public; a time: recalling a popular proverb that wants the duration of hospitality to be short, we decided to establish a month as the duration of each exhibition. The stratification of the times and methods of the guest’s stay will constitute a set of shared experiences, which aligns with what Gianni Montieri explained in his text accompanying the Italian edition of Contro Venezia by Régis Debray, published in 1995, by Wetlands in 2022: “Many years have passed, that idea of ​​exchange has been lost, but somehow it must be found again. How do we stay in the place? How do we deserve it? It is unthinkable to live in Venice taking everything you can, also because the things to take run out. You have to give, offer a contribution of thoughts, observations, new hopes, which can hold together the threads that move through the streets, that flow under the bridges” (1).  Francesca Cattoi was born in La Spezia in 1968. She carries out research in the field of contemporary art and the creation of exhibition projects. She graduated from the DAMS degree course at the University of Bologna, and continued her education at the University of California Santa Barbara, the University of Florence and attended the three-year course of the School of Specialization in Art History at the University of Genoa.  She has worked in the museum sector both at an operational and managerial level and as a curator. As assistant to Germano Celant, she carried out research and coordination for important and numerous exhibitions such as, “Arts & Architecture 1900-2000”, Palazzo Ducale, Genoa, 2004; “Vertigo. The century of off-media art from Futurism to the web”, MAMbo Museo di Arte Moderna di Bologna, Bologna, 2007; “Piero Manzoni. A Retrospective”, Gagosian Gallery, New York, 2009; “Lucio Fontana: Ambienti spaziale”, Gagosian Gallery, New York, 2012. From 2013 to 2015, she served as artistic consultant and programming manager for the CAMeC Centro Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, La Spezia, where she curated a section dedicated to the collection’s printed works on paper together with Vanessa Milan. She currently serves as Collection Registrar at the Fondazione Prada, Milan.
Régis Debray, Against Venice, Wetlands Venice, 2022, p. 75