The calli around San Francesco della Vigna wind themselves around one another, split apart, interlace, find each other, merge, separate again. Three times, you return to the same square, which is more like a cul-de-sac than an actual square, the buildings separating out just enough to see that you are not anywhere in particular. You follow the numbers on the doors. They skip, up and down, by the dozen. Every time you walk over a bridge, a new, obscure, numerical formula begins.

It is 17:42 and you are stepping into a bar. You have not been here before, you are sure of it. A woman stands behind the counter, drying glasses with a cloth, placing them distractedly side-by-side on a red, tin tray. Only those noises: wipe (squeak), tin, clink. Those and the ceiling-fan (not really the noise of it, rather the sound of air moving in circles). Or perhaps you have been here, but you cannot really remember if it was here or in Berchidda. It was much, much warmer there. It smells like rain today.

When she talks, cloth and glass in hand, she says: you’re back.

Conspiratorial, you walk out, the beginning of a thought forming, in which the streets and the woman and the tin tray and glass are all already part of the work you think you are looking for. After all, you never know.

The narrow streets eventually open up onto the square, an L-shaped area awkwardly interrupted by a church. To the right is the building of the Scuola di San Pasquale. You reach the exhibition through symmetrical steps that join at the top, into an elevated central hall. It is grand, enormous, a vast amount of empty space growing upwards with the movement of your eyes. The works are entirely installed on this side of the white curtain, each in its own, distinct place, an itinerary arranged for you, winding itself between the sculptures. On the left, a display of photographs and paintings, and a light wooden bench. Sitting on the bench, a scattered handful of people read copies of the same white book. They hold a thoughtful, concentrated silence – for a moment they appear still, as if intentionally representing the act of reading. A symmetry, a balance obtained through the doubling of things, pervades. This, you owe to the two Augustina, staring at you from the floor, with their blank, bodiless, plaster eyes[*]. Behind them, sitting on an easel, you find that piece of wall from your house that you had, one day, woken up to find missing[*].

To the right, a tall work desk, papers, more copies of the book. Darius Mikšys stands on the other side of the desk, types[*].

You walk across the space, to one edge of the white curtain, peer behind it to discover what is removed from view.

Stacks and stacks of works, crates, shelves, compartments, and the odd scattered art-handler’s white cotton glove.

Met by the breeze, the white curtain whooshes softly. You return to the exhibition, the desk, and open the book.