The Dicastery for Culture and Education has published the documentary “Need and Hope” by Linda Koncz. The project is the result of interviews conducted in the Giudecca women's prison during the Art Biennale in Venice.

Under the theme “Con i miei occhi”, the Holy See pavilion at the exhibition is an unprecedented curatorial project involving inmates from Giudecca women's prison. The inmates not only actively participated in the creation of the exhibition, but also lead visitors through the pavilion/prison.

Linda Koncz interviewed visitors, collaborators and inmates of the women's prison at the Venice Biennale to explore what it means to be a “foreigner” in today's world, referring to the theme of the 2024 Biennale, “Foreigners Everywhere”. The questions focused on the role of art and culture in (re)integrating into society.

In the words of Cardinal Tolentino Mendonça: “Contemporary culture prefers to metaphorize vision, but seeing with one's own eyes gives vision a unique status, as it involves us directly in reality and makes us not spectators, but witnesses.” 

Linda Koncz is a fellow of the Program in Integral Human Development at CADOS, developing a project on the socio-cultural aspects of the integration process of migrants in Lisbon, Portugal. Her interdisciplinary approach between the arts and academia results in a visual storytelling as part of her academic research. The documentary is the result of a collaboration between CADOS' Program in Integral Human Development and the Dicastery for Culture and Education, led by Dom Tolentino de Mendonça. 

Find out more about this project here.