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Landing by helicopter at a women\u2019s prison where the Vatican has mounted its pavilion for the Venice Biennale<\/a> international art exhibition, Pope Francis on Sunday told the women incarcerated there that they had a \u201cspecial place in my heart.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGrazie,\u201d one woman called out. Others applauded.<\/p>\n Many of the women had participated with artists in creating works that hang throughout the prison for the exhibition, titled \u201cWith My Eyes.\u201d<\/a> Francis, the first pope ever to visit \u2014 if briefly \u2014 a Venice Biennale, said that it was \u201cfundamental\u201d for the prison system \u201cto offer detainees the tools and room for human, spiritual, cultural and professional growth, creating the conditions for their healthy reintegration.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNot to isolate dignity, but to give new possibilities,\u201d Francis said to applause.<\/p>\n Over the decades, countries participating in the Biennale \u2014 the world\u2019s principal showcase for new art<\/a> \u2014 have used deconsecrated churches, former beer factories, water buses and various other sites to display their art, but this was the first time a prison was selected.<\/p>\n That made the project \u201cmore complex and more difficult to implement,\u201d Bruno Racine, the director of two venues of the Pinault Collection in Venice and a co-curator of the Vatican Pavilion, said in an interview. But the setting is consistent with Francis\u2019 message of inclusivity toward marginalized people, he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The Vatican project has received an overwhelmingly positive public reception, but it has not been without controversy. Some critics raised ethical concerns<\/a> about the intersection of powerful institutions like the Vatican and the Biennale with the limited autonomy of imprisoned women. Others suggested that the Vatican, in mounting the show, was complicit in a penal system in which overcrowding remains a serious issue<\/a>.<\/p>\n Still others demanded that the pope request pardons or at least reduced sentences for any women who were incarcerated because they had responded violently to domestic abuse.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think the Vatican has the power to have any influence over Italian justice,\u201d Mr. Racine said of that idea.<\/p>\n While the Vatican has not publicly responded to the critiques, Francis has been consistently outspoken about domestic abuse, saying in 2021<\/a> that there was something \u201calmost satanic\u201d about the high number of cases of domestic violence against women.<\/p>\n He has also been a vocal advocate of prison reform, denouncing overcrowding and often meeting with inmates during his travels.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n On Sunday, Francis said that prison was \u201ca harsh reality, and problems such as overcrowding, the lack of facilities and resources, and episodes of violence give rise to a great deal of suffering there.\u201d But he said prison could also be a place where people\u2019s dignity could be \u201cpromoted through mutual respect and the nurturing of talents and abilities, perhaps dormant or imprisoned by the vicissitudes of life.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The pope described his artistic vision to artists he called to the Sistine Chapel last year<\/a>, telling them to \u201cthink of the poor and to ensure that art went into the peripheries,\u201d the Vatican\u2019s culture chief, Cardinal Jos\u00e9 Tolentino de Mendon\u00e7a, said earlier this year. On Sunday, Francis told artists involved with the Vatican project that \u201cthe world needs artists.\u201d<\/p>\n The curators, Mr. Racine and Chiara Parisi, of Centre Pompidou-Metz, the French museum, selected a handful of artists to work with the incarcerated women to create works that are scattered through the prison.<\/p>\n One, a 1965 serigraph featuring the word Hope backward, was hung over the door of the prison canteen, where about a quarter of the 80-odd inmates who agreed to serve as guides to the show first meet visitors. The serigraph was created by the artist Corita Kent, a former nun and an activist for social justice who died in 1986.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The Lebanese artist Simone Fattal transcribed poems and reflections by the incarcerated women on lava slabs that line a brick corridor: \u201cI thought I was suffocating.\u201d \u201cI often think of my family.\u201d \u201cI am so sad.\u201d<\/p>\n In another room were small stylized paintings by the French artist Claire Tabouret that were based on family photos the women had given her.<\/p>\n Visitors get only a brief glimpse of penitentiary life, but during the tour a short film, directed by Marco Perego and starring his wife, the actor Zoe Salda\u00f1a, shows the conditions inside in bleak black and white: shared rooms, shared showers, little privacy. Both inmates and professional actresses acted in the film, Mr. Racine said.<\/p>\n This is the third time the Vatican has participated in the Biennale: In 2013 and 2015, it was among many participants at the Arsenale, one the fair\u2019s main venues. And for the 2018 Architecture Biennale, the Vatican built a series of chapels, \u201cfor believers and nonbelievers alike,\u201d<\/a> that can still be visited<\/a>.<\/p>\n On Sunday, the pope greeted the inmates of the Giudecca prison individually in an inner courtyard. Some gave him flowers, and others pressed envelopes and notes in his hands.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Giovanni Russo, the head of the Department of Penitentiary Administration in the Italian Ministry of Justice, told reporters at a Vatican news conference in March that the women who participated in the project were entitled to unspecified benefits. While the Vatican Pavilion was unique, he said, nearly all of Italy\u2019s 190 penitentiaries had \u201cartistic projects\u201d of some kind or another, involving more than 20,000 volunteers.<\/p>\n Visitors to the pavilion must book in advance, and time slots have been filling up fast.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not the first time that the inmates at the prison have participated in major art projects. Two years ago, the French artist Pauline Curnier Jardin worked with inmates to make a film and paint a large common room where the women meet visitors twice a week. The walls are now a soft purple, decorated with stylized leaves and figures designed by the inmates during a series of workshops with the artist.<\/p>\n After the Biennale closes in November, the artworks in \u201cWith My Eyes\u201d will be removed, Mr. Racine said. But Ms. Curnier Jardin\u2019s soothing additions will remain.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n