Now offering its exclusive Perfume Trail, Palazzo Mocenigo inaugurates three new spaces on the ground floor on June 5.
Perfume Workshop
Multimedia Room
White Room: “The Rape of Venice”

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From June, 6th, 2015

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Thanks to the collaboration and support of MAVIVE, as of June 6, 2015, the Venetian museum will have its own Multimedia Room, a Perfume Workshop with courses for the public and for professionals and a White Room for temporary events.

The exciting multi-sensorial installation called The Rape of Venice, by Andrea Morucchio, inaugurates the new space and is part of the “Muve Contemporaneo” programme. The cultural offering of the surprising Museo di Palazzo Mocenigo in Venice is thus further expanded.

Enlarged and renewed in November 2013 in terms of itinerary and layout on the basis of a project by architect, director and scenographer Pier Luigi Pizzi, and with a new and important section dedicated to perfume, Palazzo Mocenigo now inaugurates – again thanks to the partnership between the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia and Mavive, the Venetian company belonging to the Vidal family – three new spaces on the ground floor of the historic building, including a perfume workshop for the public and for professionals: a unique feature in the Italian museum world.

While, therefore, on the piano nobile (first floor), there are six rooms dedicated to scent perfectly integrated into the displays of the rest of the museum, multimedia and sensory experiences alternate in an unprecedented succession of information, emotion and learning, on the ground floor – as of June 6 – the doors will open to Multimedia Room, a well-equipped Perfume Laboratory and a White Room: a space devoted to temporary events, the first of which, as part of the “Muve Contemporary” programme, will be the multi sensory installation The Rape of Venice by Andrea Morucchio.

Six interactive stations will be available to visitors in the new multimedia room, to learn more following the visit to the displays on the first floor of Palazzo Mocenigo, while the laboratory – a professionally equipped room stocked with more than 200 essences – will for the first time in Italy offer introductory and specialisation courses in the world of perfumery and the creation of scents, guiding participants in the creation of their own personal fragrance. All thanks to the support of the Chamber of Commerce of Venice.

Organised by teachers from Mavive Parfums in collaboration and in synergy with the Educational Services of the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, the laboratory will offer activities aimed at different audiences: a basic workshop for adults implemented as early as June, to be followed, from September, by activities for schools and families and the professional courses for specialists in the field in collaboration with international scientific institutes, including the University of Ferrara, the Accademia del Profumo, Cosmetica Italia and Drom.

Using multimedia back-up and an olfactory approach, participants will be accompanied on a fascinating journey between cultures and different geographical areas, exploring the classification of the bases of perfumes, the concept of the olfactory pyramid and knowledge of the most important raw materials. And thanks to a kit that is supplied and the guidance of their teacher, participants will themselves create a personal fragrance to take home.

The sense of smell and the other senses of visitors to Palazzo Mocenigo will be awakened also by the absolutely enthralling installation by Andrea Morucchio, a Venetian artist born in 1967 who has over the years developed an interesting multidisciplinary artistic approach.

The collaboration between the Fondazione MUVE and Mavive has made it possible to equip the beautiful museum in San Stae also with a new space for temporary exhibitions. The first event, curated by Matteo Bertelè and Vittorio Urbani with project manager Marco Vidal (until November 22) could only be dedicated to Venice. Making perfect use of a sense of synesthesia, in The Rape of Venice – under the patronage of the Veneto Region – Morucchio leads visitors to reflect, immersing them in the whirl of this extraordinary city, with all its beauty and its contradictions, amid monuments, lights, the noise of boats and of tourists, and all its smells.

Seeking empathy with the visitor in the installation space, the artist touches on the most delicate and topical matters concerning the preservation of the historic lagoon city, accompanying visitors from a feeling of instability and confusion – in a growing climax that involves all the senses – to the liberating discovery of a scent that is the truest and most original of Venice: the scent of cold seaweed that is a “feeling of supreme bliss” and “synonymous with happiness”, according to Josif Brodsky in “Fondamenta degli Incurabili”.

The fragrance wafts through the space in which the installation has been installed and is an intense, living scent, both marine and vegetable at the same time, which, combined with the dampness of the stones exuding the typical salty smell of the space, is the true scent of Venice. Created by skilled master perfumers of Mavive after months of research and olfactory analysis of the lagoon, it is diffused using technological instruments that introduce the visitor into a surreal atmosphere.

“The Essence of Venice” will also be a fragrance that visitors can take home: prepared by perfumer Maurizio Cerizza of AFM, it has been sampled and reproduced in a limited series of small bottles containing the essence of Venice. A souvenir to remind you that the fate of the city depends on respect of the natural environment.