ITALIAN JOURNEY – PROGRAMME 1

VENICE – THE GONDOLIERS

Venice is so well known that you feel at home there even on your first visit. But what about its inhabitants – people who were born and bred there? How can they avoid feeling they’re living in a theme park?

Mauro Sambro was born in Venice, and he’s a gondolier. James asks him how he manages to do such a stereotypical job.

Mauro Sambo: Being a gondolier is part of my life. And I’m not too bothered about the fact that it’s stereotypical – there aren’t that many jobs in Venice that aren’t.

James: That’s true! And has your job changed at all over the past few years?

Mauro Sambo: Yes it has changed in the sense that you have to work much more quickly now.  There was a time when tourists came to Venice for a few days, chose themselves a gondolier, the gondolier was at their service, and they’d go off to visit the city’s most important sites with him. Now what you get is groups of Japanese and American tourists, they come to Venice for half a day, the next day they go off to Florence, and so naturally the profession has changed a lot.

James: But don’t you get bored of working with tourists like that?

Mauro Sambo: No, I don’t get bored of it, because it’s my job. I suit the profession very well. Charlie Parker used to say that he was a musician among musicians, an artist among artists, and an addict among addicts. With me it’s the same: I’m a gondolier when I’m a gondolier, and that’s that.

James: Is it a profession that runs in the family?

Mauro Sambo: It is for me. My father was a gondolier and I’ve been a gondolier for 25 years – I started when I was still a student at the Accademia di Belle Arti. I like this job, it enables me to keep an independent mind, and because it’s seasonal, I have lots of free time in the winter.

Mauro moors his gondola and offers to show James the other things he does.

Mauro Sambo: This is a Wind Controller, it’s a keyboard but you can play like a saxophone: it’s the same keys, the same finger positions. It’s also sensitive to breathing and touch, so it really is a keyboard designed for saxophonists.

James: How can you be a gondolier and a musician at the same time?

Mauro Sambo: I don’t think the two activities are incompatible, at least they shouldn’t be. I’m a gondolier because it allows me to do things I wouldn’t be able to do otherwise. 

James: But isn’t there a contrast between the modernity of your music and the traditional image tourists have of Venice?

Mauro Sambo: Well, that’s just a tourist’s point of view. Venice isn’t like Disneyland you know! Venice is a real city, and people who live here have the same needs as any other people in any other city. People here in Venice want to see new things, they need contemporary ideas.

Mauro is also an artist, and his works are very contemporary. He takes James to his studio to show him a few examples.

Mauro Sambo: I think one of the most important aspects of my work is its intimacy. I’ve been inspired by my own family, by my own experiences. This work behind me is dedicated to my daughter: it’s a series photo montages in which I’ve placed my daughter’s dolls and stuffed animals in rotting environments- these works describe my own fears about my daughter growing up in a hostile world. 

My work is typically Venetian, it’s about trying to contain the natural process of decomposition. I think Venetian palaces can never really fall into ruin, they will always be powerful aesthetically. So what I’m trying to describe is an attempt to control dilapidation, which is very specific to this city. When something falls into ruin and rots away, it can be very unpleasant, but in Venice things never really perish, they always retain a certain kind of aura.