Here are my reflections from Venice Biennale, a few years back

Beautiful Venice, La Serenissima is in big trouble right now.  Acqua Alta


Venice Biennale-Architecture 2  - Australia

So we're peering into the architectural drawings, the footprints, the photos, the models and the tiny, tiny font to read the information from each country's interpretation of From The Edge. Brilliant stuff, Europe is concerned with housing millions of refugees, there are some brilliant, intelligent solutions , short medium and long term.  This is earnest stuff.

Then we walked into the new Australian Pavillion, it's a dark, plain even severe building.  I read somewhere that the architects wanted the art to speak, more than the building. It was a hot day. So what's in the building.......  the Australian Pavillion has a swimming pool.  Nothing to read, no drawings, no photos no tiny, tiny font to read. I flopped into one of the cool deck chairs on pool deck and listened to the voices. recognized the voices. We've been away a while so that was nice. I chuckled to myself thinking how lightweight Australia was..

I watched the reflections of the water.  Then the voice of Anna Funder talked about how important the pool was to all Australians finding a cool spot on a hot day,such fun for kids.  It means summer and freedom to kids. Yeah
Tim Flannery talked about what a waste a pool was, effectively, poisoning water with chlorine, just so we could swim in it.  Yeah.
Hetti Perkins talked about her dad, Charlie and the freedom rides in NSW in the late '60s. She said how pools outwest didnt allow indigenous people in.  Now the pools outwest, not only welcome all children, but the pool access has resulted in fewer ear infections, - This means better attention in schools, actually better hearing in schools, so children learn better.
They had a cute sign "AQUA PROFUNDA" up on the back wall.  Tbis was a nod to the Fitzroy pool, where there was a big Italian migrant population. The pool manager was so sick of fishing people out of the deep end that he put up sign in "Italian" aqua profunda, (spelt incorrectly in Italian hehe)

Public pools ARE big for Australians a serious cultural icon, a slice of our former lives, and really delicious on a hot day.