From October, the Querini Stampalia Library is changing pace and extending its opening hours: every Thursday and Friday, it will be open until midnight. The Late Night Library is for those who love the Library at every time of day, as well as for those looking for a place to linger when Venice grows quieter. An opportunity to experience the Querini Stampalia beyond its usual opening hours, at your own pace and accompanied by the evening light.

Those who work at the Querini Stampalia are part of the Foundation’s everyday story: people who inhabit its spaces, shape its activities, welcome the public, care for its collections, and work with books, artworks and archives. With Fantastic People and Where to Find Them, visual artist Giusy Calia chooses to meet and photograph these very people, creating a gallery of portraits in which every face becomes an opportunity to imagine what lies beyond immediately visible identity. The result is an atlas in which the human figure is not exhausted by what is evident, but opens onto another dimension, made up of presences, associations and possibilities.

The “Ritratti Volontari” project, promoted by the Querini Stampalia Foundation, was born from the desire to make visible a community that is precious and fundamental to us. More than a simple photographic record, the project takes the form of a gesture of recognition, dedicated to the people who, for a time, inhabit, care for and help make the Foundation a special and welcoming place.