On May 7, Golden Goose invited a “community of dreamers” to Venice, Italy, to kick off this year’s Biennale of Architecture. The sneaker brand had put together a massive series of interactive art spaces inside its sprawling creative headquarters, HAUS, including an original immersive piece tilted Altered States, by Marco Brambilla, for the event. Actors like Stranger Things’s Amybeth McNulty, Pratibha Ranta, and singer Jack Savoretti were among the attendees—an eclectic mix of skateboarders, artists, and influencers. They’d all been ferried by boat through the city’s iconic canals to Marghera, an industrial shipping port that feels far removed from the historical city of Venice. But Marghera is actually where Golden Goose’s history began 25 years ago. HAUS is part archive, part artisan training ground, and part exhibition space. Think of it as the Golden Goose epicenter for dreaming, where one can learn about the brand’s history by scoping out archival pieces, watching artisans at work on new collaborations, or seeing artworks on display by luminaries who help bring the brand’s ethos to life. This year, one of those artists was Brambilla, who is known for his dreamlike videos, where he creates massive moving collages out of hundreds of film clips.
A labyrinth of Brambilla’s video art and imagery—including tunnels, a room of famous faces floating in bubbles, and hypnotic shorts—all led to a grand hangar where guests were served special bites created by Chef Paolo Griffa, while a kaleidoscopic video collage titled Heaven’s Gate played on a massive screen.
