Our journey among the twenty Italian villages chosen by Una Boccata d’Arte as this year’s art stops continues to the south of the peninsula. The Fondazione Elpis project – which we have told you about here – was created with the intention of developing a relationship between history, the conformation of the place and the creative practice of each selected artist, while promoting the appreciation of beautiful, almost unknown villages.
If last week we focused on the northern stages of Italy, stopping in Umbria, today we will continue, starting in Lazio and ending in Sicily. We remind you that the villages – with their related projects – can be visited throughout the summer, until 24 September.
#11 Laetitia KY, Follow the Braid (Lazio)
The small village of Rocca Sinibalda, in the province of Rieti, is “entrusted” to the Ivorian artist and activist Laetitia KY (1996). Laetitia’s research is developed around the concept of metamorphosis. In this sense, Rocca Sinibalda proves interesting for the artist, who finds herself investigating the history and symbolism of the Castello delle Metamorfosi in the village. The name derives from the interior frescoes depicting scenes from Ovid’s epic poem – The Metamorphoses to be precise – taken up here by KY in a feminist key. The artist creates a life-size sculpture of a woman and places it in the centre of the square. The work, entitled “Follow the Braid”, places itself “in the service of the feminist struggle” by representing all the ways in which women “transform” to adapt to the place where they are. The work consists of the central sculpture and a series of photographs located in the most hidden places in the village, which are reached by following the braids that wind from the figure of the woman.
#12 Margherita Raso, Eight Types of Whistle (Marche)
In Petritoli, in the province of Fermo, Marche – Una Boccata d’Arte presents ‘Eight Types of Whistle’ by Margherita Raso, a multi-channel sound installation in a choral composition of human whistles. It reflects the delicate system of collective work in the theatre, its rules and behind the scenes. It focuses on the semantic role of the sound-whistle, rich in heterogeneous meanings. Curated by Riccardo Tonti Bandini, the intervention is connected to the outside of the theatre through a series of images in the form of posters, affixed in the streets of the village, constructing a representation of the sound action.
#13 Simone Carraro, Sagra della Lucertola (Abruzzo)
In Abruzzo, we find ourselves in Pietracamela, in the province of Teramo, with “Sagra della Lucertola” by Simone Carraro. Curated by Andrea Croce, the artist’s work is strongly conditioned by the places and contexts with which it relates. The mediums are musical performance and visual arts, evoking a carnival scene that has as its backdrop the semi-abandoned village, teeming with mosses and small reptiles. At the opening, the public was accompanied throughout the tour by performers and musicians playing lizard-like instruments. These sonorous sculptures made by the artist were then set up in the village for the duration of the project.
#14 Diego Miguel Mirabella, Il buffone (Molise)
Agnone, in Molise, is the resting place of ‘Il buffone’, the opera by Diego Miguel Mirabella (1988). The work, which has the appearance of a shrub without leaves, represents a storyteller who wanders from village to village recounting the fictional events that have happened to him. Paradoxical is the form chosen by the artist – a shrub firmly fixed to the ground – therefore unable to move. The melancholy that the bronze sculpture triggers leads the viewer to wonder how an adventurous character could have turned into such a static being. The artist, who works by interweaving sculpture and poetry, encapsulates a multitude of stories and cultures in a single element, touching on past, present and future.
For its realisation, the artist worked with the Pontificia Fonderia Marinelli, located right in Agnone, dealing with the millenary traditions of the place. In particular, the Marinelli Foundry has been making the bells of the Popes since 1040, as well as refined musical instruments.
#15 Serena Vestrucci, Abbronzatissimi Pallidissimi (Campania)
Snowmen are popping up in the village of Cetara, in the province of Salerno. They are the work of artist Serena Vestrucci, who fits into the place with the intention of creating a strong visual and sensory contrast. With these ‘disturbing’ sculptures, Vestrucci wants to invite visitors to reflect on the theme of hospitality and the ephemeral. The works are in fact made of sea salt, in a way revealing, through the materials, their closeness to the place, but at the same time their fleetingness. The three snowmen are estimated to last only one summer, melting and disappearing on the ground.
#16 Evita Vasiļjeva, Barely Invisible Cities (Puglia)
The title of the work – “Barely Invisible Cities” – chosen by Latvian artist Evita Vasiljeva for her work located in Maruggio, is based on Italo Calvino’s “Le città invisibili”. Just as Calvino restores the intimate tale of each city through the stories of its inhabitants, Evita too immerses herself in the territory, relating with the people of Maruggio during the winter, listening to their stories. The artist notices a constant, a recurring element both visually and orally: that of the fence. In this sense, in order to unhinge the semantics of the object, which inevitably refers to an obstacle or an impediment, Vasiljeva creates three portals in corten with the typical rusty look of gratings, but which here become devoid of their function. The portals do not separate but rather invite people to pause thanks to the presence of elements on which it is possible to sit. The work promotes unity and exchange, emphasising the importance of meeting and getting together.
#17 Arianna Pace, Me ne andrei nella roccia della Lieta (Basilicata)
‘I would go to the rock of Lieta’ is the work realised by Arianna Pace for the Lucania stage in Rivello, in the province of Potenza. The ‘Lieta’ is an indecipherable place, an imaginary refuge to find a lost peace in order to get away from social life, isolated in nature. This is why, in dialectal usage, the name of the work can be translated into Italian as ‘me ne ne ne andrei in un luogo di calma’ (I would go away to a place of calm). The Valle del Noce, where Rovello and the neighbouring municipalities are located, is a continuous creation of the river Noce. Here, the work develops, questioning the landscape and taking the form of a landscape archive.
#18 Mohsen Baghernejad Moghanjooghi, d’io, bio (Calabria)
Mohsen Baghernejad Moghanjooghi‘s (1988) research revolves around the relationship between man and time, which in the Calabrian village of Santa Severina is translated into three works in which the word becomes tangible. The three works – consisting of marble slabs – were created following an exchange of letters with the artist Lawrence Weiner, one of the pioneers of the conceptual movement of the 1960s and 1970s, who was able to completely change Mohsen’s perception of time, influencing it in a decisive way.
#19 Ella Littwitz, Axis Mundi (Sicilia)
Moving on to Sicily, Una Boccata d’arte presents “Axis Mundi” by Ella Littwitz in Pollina, in the province of Palermo. The Israeli artist has realised a study of the territory born out of an encounter with Giulio Gelardi – a historian, militant botanist and cultivator of manna, an ancient crop of the Madonie territory. The work is none other than an obelisk to be placed in the highest place in the village, where the trigonometric point used to map the entire area once stood. “Axis Mundi” (which translated into Italian means “Axis of the World”) reaffirms the ontological interdependence between the plant and animal kingdoms, celestial phenomena and human beings.
#20 Raffaela Naldi Rossano, SERPENTINA. Per un mūsēum senza tempo (Sardegna)
The community of Belvì, in the province of Nuoro, is confronted with the sacredness of nature by artist Raffaela Naldi Rossano through a series of works spread throughout the territory. The work is conceived by the artist, starting from the observation of the collection of the future Natural Science Museum of the village and from the reading of a letter from Gramsci‘s prison in which she explores the archetype of the snake in an a-temporal key. Thus, science and popular beliefs meet in a video installation, in a performance with the women of the village choir, and in ceramics that take the form of the Gongilo, the animal described by Gramsci.
Find out more on the website Una Boccata d’Arte.
