Connecting Cultures - Associazione Culturale per la formazione, la ricerca e le arti visive - Via Giorgio Merula, 62 20142 Milano » OutOfPlace

Letizia Cariello. C & E

laura — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 10:24:37 +0000

C & E
a project by Letizia Cariello
with the participation of Gregorio Gitti and Lea Vergine
Wednesday 10th November 2010 | h. 7.00 pm

Letizia Cariello presents the new project C & E in which two historical figures, Camille Claudel and Elizabeth I of England, are compared in a synchronic perspective. So distant and diverse, nevertheless these two figures are linked by similar psychological dynamics, fate, renunciation and a common future of hope and redemption. Letizia Cariello creates a “para-historic” dialogue to reflect on the psychological dynamics that can find a dialogue – due to certain similarities – in certain issues of artistic creation.
The project C. & E. is presented for the first time by Letizia Cariello at Connecting Cultures. The work, the idea that permeates it and the installation project have been a source of attraction for Flos, well known Italian manufacturer of decorative lighting characterized by an emphasis on art and design, which will provide two types of lamps (Globall Basic and Once) for this occasion with which Letizia Cariello will create a preview of the installation itself. The lamps represent the two souls of Camille and Elisabeth and, at the same time, enter into communication throught a script specially designed by the artist and ‘staged’ by the performance of two actresses, Caroline Tavenas as Camille Claudel and Daniella Engel as Elizabeth. What emerges is a ‘dialogue of light’ in which while Camille speaks, Elizabeth is illuminated and vice versa.
“These souls-lamp-speakers tell of living conditions that use a programmatic self-imposed denial. This is the initial move, a price to pay for a life project: a sort of volunteer duty that the person feels must offer as sacrifice to her own historical time, hoping in an intervention. In this sense, the refusal from a gesture of closure becomes a productive beginning, a new course. Both attitudes reveal a common feeling of hope: a stubborn confidence and hope in the possibilities of the world to interpret the muted performance embodied by their waste, taking on the task of sharing the responsibility and then acting on their fate. No one can think of her own fate without sharing it with the universal, without trusting in a broader vision for the future“.

Fuori Luogo 2010 |Out Of Place 2010
“The other side of avantgarde”
Thirty years after “L’altra metà dell’avanguardia” (“The other side of avantgarde”) – the exhibition curated by Lea Vergine in 1980, which first highlighted the work of women artists in the twentieth century, a milestone in the rethinking of modern and contemporary art – FuoriLuogo|OutOfPlace presents a series of encounters with a generation of contemporary women artists in their thirties and early fourties with the aim of presenting the work of this younger generation and their reflections with regard to their research and the art system within which they work.
The underlying theme connecting the seven artists’ work will be the relation between art and knowledge. This year’s FuoriLuogo intends to research the variety of interests and starting points, the processes and procedures that these artists have put into practice , the specific spheres of knowledge relevant for each artist and the very particular observation points or perspectives that those special interests imply.
The seven artists’ projects – with different modalities, sensibilities and attitudes – confront the more complex aspects of knowledge: from psychology to anthropology, from history to neuroscience, from cognitive science to epistemology. Our aim is, on the one hand, to build an interdisciplinary discussion in which artists could meet speakers from different fields of study verging on the areas their own research has touched on; and on the other, to guide the audience along a complex and exciting pathway of contemporary artistic reasoning. The motive is not to rebuild a poetic vision ‘common’ to ‘the other half of the universe’, but to better comprehend the differing perspectives on the complex world of knowledge and its definitions which fascinate and dominate the work of this generation caught in a precarious equilibrium between artistic creation and the complex universe of intellectual discovery.
The fourth edition of FuoriLuogo|OutOfPlace – series of meetings organized by Connecting Cultures from April to November 2010 – deals with contemporary themes observed through an interdisciplinary approach with the collaboration of artists, thinkers, philosophers and critics.

download press release_Letizia Cariello
download press release_FuoriLuogo|OutOfPlace 2010

FuoriLuogo2010 – Letizia Cariello from Connecting Cultures on Vimeo.

10th NOVEMBER 2010
Letizia Cariello
C & E
h. 7.00 pm, free entrance
Contemporary Arts Archive of Connecting Cultures
via Giorgio Merula 62, 20142 Milan

supported by

Susan Hefuna. Mashrabiya screens

laura — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 12:49:35 +0000

Mashrabiya screens
a work by Susan Hefuna
with the participation of Marco Biraghi
Thursday 14th October 2010 | h 7.00 pm

Susan Hefuna (Germany, 1962) lives and works in Egypt, Germany, New York City. She takes up everyday aspects of life in her work, exploring the indeterminacy of location and identity and her negotiation of her own identity through photography, video, drawing, sculpture, and digital media. Much of Hefuna’s work is informed by her dual heritage (German–Egyptian), and often features striking images of family, interior spaces, and cityscapes in and around Cairo. Through the exploration of her own diverse heritage she touches directly on issues that are critical to the inquiry of many comtemporary artists.
“My wooden Mashrabiya screens are inspired by architecture aswell are my drawings and 3 dimensional installations, performances.
In general I am inspired by abstract forms that make up the structures of life. Micro details like those seen in scientific compositions of molecules and DNA, give a breakdown of how we see space all around us. My work is a response to space, how we see ourselves when inside looking out and outside looking in. I explore the shapes of ‘mashrabiya’ screens, windows, blinds and various forms that pertain to Cairo’s architectural habits.Gridded screens of old Islamic Cairo remind me of molecular structures, architectural structures made to protect the inside world from the outside; filtering the light and cooling the inside space; allowing one to observe without being seen. The ‘Mashrabiya’ screens became my abstract symbol that operates in two directions; it separates, but also filters and joins.I often use words in English or Arabic script woven into the wooden structures. The words act differently depending on who is reading them and in which cultural context. It can be seen as an abstract image, a pattern, or simply ‘ANA’, ‘YOU’ and so on. The works begin to take on a bilingual affirmation, a codified representation of different cultural contexts.
The in between-ness of being in two cultures at the same time, reflects my personal experiences when dealing with cross-cultural codes. The observer will read the work differently depending on his/her knowledge and depth of under standing”.

Marco Biraghi is professor of History of Contemporary Architecture at Politecnico of Milan (School of Civil Architecture)

download press release_Susan Hefuna
download press release_FuoriLuogo|OutOfPlace 2010

14 OTTOBRE 2010
Susan Hefuna
Mashrabiya screens
h. 7.00 pm, free entrance
Contemporary Arts Archive of Connecting Cultures
via Giorgio Merula 62, 20142 Milan

supported by

Marzia Migliora. Quelli che trascurano di rileggere si condannano a leggere sempre la stessa storia

laura — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 12:14:29 +0000

download press release_FuoriLuogo|OutOfPlace 2010

supported by

Eva Marisaldi meets Home Movies

laura — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 13:07:37 +0000

Eva Marisaldi meets “Home Movies” – National Family Movies Archive
with the participation of Gisella Gaspari e Paolo Simoni

The work of Eva Marisaldi deals with little gestures, insinuations, suspicions. Her speeches are light and complicated at the same time. The artist represents her world through different ways of expression, ranging from the construction of simple objects to articulated installations, using different languages like videomaking, drawing or embroidery. Questioning about themes like dialogue and communication, Eva Marisaldi investigates the possibilities of individual and collective reflection in the context of exhibition space, in a delicate and elegant relationship with it.
Through different ways of expression and without searching for any special effect or exuberance, Marisaldi creates rarefied and essential situations that, sometimes, acquire the abstract peculiarity of a game.
Eva Marisaldi meets Home Movies
Her collaboration with the National Family Movies Archive “Home Movies” (Bologna) originates from a need of dealing with a fragmented, complex and full of signs and traces material, like family movies. Starting from this private cinematic source, a real dialogue takes places through images using by the artist to join old movies with her recent and past works. Into these fragments of private history the artist finds the words to complete her work’s explanation

download press release_Eva Marisaldi meets Home Movies
download press release_FuoriLuogo|OutOfPlace 2010

supported by

Meris Angioletti. Paradigma Indiziario

laura — Fri, 28 May 2010 08:48:47 +0000

Paradigma Indiziario
a project by Meris Angioletti
with the participation of Paola Nicolin e Giulia Ceriani

Rather than an art work, Meris Angioletti focuses on a method of investigation: she calls it Paradigma Indiziario (Circumstantial Paradigm) that is the specific procedure of the detective, the doctor, the psychoanalyst or the historian. Angioletti’s works forces us to adopt the attitude of the hunter searching for her prey, the traces, stories, apparently meaningless objects that it leaves behind which – once connected – slowly reveal their mysteries. The charm of her projects lies in her particular skill in bringing us through different fields of knowledge: from historical investigations to neurosciences, from mnemotechnics to mesmerisation, showing us the ancestral (and almost prehistoric) nature of the human mind and our need to join together the pieces and follow our noses, whatever our field of investigation.
“Yes, I am attached to a methodology close to the scientific experiment, even though I am also interested in mixing it with less analytical elements. A Roman artist Sergio Lombardo, founder of the magazine “Psicologia Dell’Arte” in the late 70s, comes to mind. He describes two ways of approaching the mind: the first is to use it in a spontaneous way, taking the patient’s role; the other is to observe it, recognizing the symptoms, describing it as a psychiatrist or a scientist would do. This investigation helped me to understand better my interest in the human psyche, is devices and behaviour: its skills in creating connections and associations of ideas, going back and forwards in time, producing projections, translating information, which I try to re-translate and organise in a project, even modifying the results of experiments. I’m not just referring to the placebo effect, but also the effect of having expectations, such as those of an observer involved in a scientific experiment which may modify the results. Some medical research, in fact, is carried out in situations in which neither the observer nor the observed knows what pharmaceutical is being tested. I believe that art works are subject to similar kinds of interaction“.

download press release_Paradigma Indiziario
download press release_FuoriLuogo|OutOfPlace 2010

supported by

ANNULLATO – Fatoumata Kandé Senghor. Seeking the truth

laura — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 13:21:10 +0000

Seeking the truth
a project by Fatoumata Kandé Senghor
with the participation of Lorenzo Fusi

Fatoumata Kandé Senghor is a young artist from Senegal; she created an artistic research platform called Waru Studio in Dakar that works like an experimentation lab, allying – Art- science-technology – Ecology-environment and Politics. Waru in Wolof language means wonderment and the platform is an incubator that combines all these sciences using new technologies. Convinced that art in Africa is an efficient weapon to address and resolve issues that concern Africans, and touch others in the world. She also works with young artists that need to broaden their discourse. In her own work she uses mediums such as photography, video, printing to raise consciousness around her.
Presentation of the video My piece of poetry, about a Diola tribe ritual called the bukut. According to the legend, Diola people are descendants of two sisters: Aguene and Adiambone. They were lost during a trip while on a fragile fishing boat, on the river. Aguene ended up in the region called “Saloum” and later became mother of the Sereer tribe and Adiambone ended up in Casamance where she founded the Diola tribe.
In the modern era, the Diola community trapped in modernism and dealing with other communities came up with a ritual to protect their community and organise its young people to meet and reproduce between them: the ‘bukut ‘ rite. It is the survival of what the Diola tribe is made of. It is an initiation ceremony, a meeting aimed to protect our beliefs and our cultural usage. It’s a stay in an area of meditation and learning in the sacred wood. It is a key ceremony for the Diola people.
The most beautiful moment in the life of a Diola is the ‘bukut’ rite. Access to the sacred wood. It is the most beautiful feast in the Diola community. If you ask the question to any Diola whatsoever, he will confirm it. The Diola can save his money for 20 years and almost starve himself while waiting for that one special day to come and, without the least hesitation, spend millions on that sole day. There is no moment such strong in their lives. If anything happened to that ritual it would definitely kill their identity. As long as they have not gone through the sacred wood they cannot get a wife within the community.They do not have access to the palaver tree where all the issues about the community are decided. This is another cultural resistance. It is the secret of their masculinity, what makes them full men, ready to face life, obedient and faithful to the community. That is their cement. That is the door that leads to the other world, a world which unites their dreams. Depending to the villages, the bukut rite takes place every 25, 30 or 40 years.

Fuori Luogo 2010 |Out Of Place 2010
“The other side of avantgarde”
Thirty years after “L’altra metà dell’avanguardia” (“The other side of the avantgarde”) – the exhibition curated by Lea Vergine in 1980, which first highlighted the work of women artists in the twentieth century, a milestone in the rethinking of modern and contemporary art – FuoriLuogo|OutOfPlace presents a series of encounters with a generation of contemporary women artists in their thirties and early fourties with the aim of presenting the work of this younger generation and their reflections with regard to their research and the art system within which they work.
The underlying theme connecting the seven artists’ work will be the relation between art and knowledge. This year’s FuoriLuogo intends to research the variety of interests and starting points, the processes and procedures that these artists have put into practice , the specific spheres of knowledge relevant for each artist and the very particular observation points or perspectives that those special interests imply.
The seven artists’ projects – with different modalities, sensibilities and attitudes – confront the more complex aspects of knowledge: from psychology to anthropology, from history to neuroscience, from cognitive science to epistemology. Our aim is, on the one hand, to build an interdisciplinary discussion in which artists could meet speakers from different fields of study verging on the areas their own research has touched on; and on the other, to guide the audience along a complex and exciting pathway of contemporary artistic reasoning. The motive is not to rebuild a poetic vision ‘common’ to ‘the other half of the universe’, but to better comprehend the differing perspectives on the complex world of knowledge and its definitions which fascinate and dominate the work of this generation caught in a precarious equilibrium between artistic creation and the complex universe of intellectual discovery.
The fourth edition of FuoriLuogo|OutOfPlace – series of meetings organized by Connecting Cultures from April to November 2010 – deals with contemporary themes observed through an interdisciplinary approach with the collaboration of artists, thinkers, philosophers and critics.

download press release_Seeking the truth
download press release_FuoriLuogo|OutOfPlace 2010

supported by

Margherita Morgantin. Titolo variabile

laura — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 12:57:40 +0000

Fuori Luogo 2010 |Out Of Place 2010
“The other side of avantgarde”
Thirty years after “L’altra metà dell’avanguardia” (“The other side of the avantgarde”) –the exhibition curated by Lea Vergine in 1980, which first highlighted the work of women artists in the twentieth century, a milestone in the rethinking of modern and contemporary art, FuoriLuogo|OutOfPlace presents a series of encounters with a generation of contemporary women artists in their thirties and early fourties with the aim of presenting the work of this younger generation and their reflections with regard to their research and the art system within which they work.
The underlying theme connecting the seven artists’ work will be the relation between art and knowledge. This year’s FuoriLuogo intends to research the variety of interests and starting points, the processes and procedures that these artists have put into practice , the specific spheres of knowledge relevant for each artist and the very particular observation points or perspectives that those special interests imply.
The seven artists’ projects – with different modalities, sensibilities and attitudes – confront the more complex aspects of knowledge: from psychology to anthropology, from history to neuroscience, from cognitive science to epistemology. Our aim is, on the one hand, to build an interdisciplinary discussion in which artists could meet speakers from different fields of study verging on the areas their own research has touched on; and on the other, to guide the audience along a complex and exciting pathway of contemporary artistic reasoning. The motive is not to rebuild a poetic vision ‘common’ to ‘the other half of the universe’, but to better comprehend the differing perspectives on the complex world of knowledge and its definitions which fascinate and dominate the work of this generation caught in a precarious equilibrium between artistic creation and the complex universe of intellectual discovery.
The fourth edition of FuoriLuogo|OutOfPlace – series of meetings organized by Connecting Cultures from April to November 2010 – deals with contemporary themes observed through an interdisciplinary approach with the collaboration of artists, thinkers, philosophers and critics.

download press release_FuoriLuogo|OutOfPlace 2010

supported by

Alterazioni Video. Incompiuto Siciliano

admin — Wed, 13 May 2009 14:15:59 +0000

Incompiuto Siciliano
un progetto di Alterazioni Video presentato da Andrea Masu e Matteo Erenbourg
intervengono Alessandro Rocca e Salvatore Silvano Nigro

Il collettivo di artisti Alterazioni Video parte da un paradosso: inventariare le opere incompiute sul territorio italiano e metterle a sistema. Esiste uno stile dell’Incompiuto? Quali connessioni profonde esistono – politiche, storiche, stilistiche – fra i monumenti pubblici mai finiti che costellano il territorio del nostro paese?
Circoscrivendo l’ambizioso progetto ad un’area specifica – il comune di Giarre in Sicilia – il collettivo ha deciso di rispondere a queste domande con un altro paradosso: proporre alle amministrazioni locali la progettazione di un ‘Parco Archeologico dell’Incompiuto‘. Guardare queste reliquie della mala-amministrazione con un occhio nuovo, da esploratori o da turisti consente di notare – non senza un pizzico di ironia -, osservare e scoprire qualcosa di assolutamente nuovo: un Bel Paese al contrario. Con i suoi stilemi da cartolina ribaltati in un’ottica critica anche se autoironica. Da oltre tre anni, il collettivo artistico Alterazioni Video sta conducendo un lavoro di identificazione, mappatura e ricerca sull’Incompiuto. Con questo termine sono identificati i manufatti architettonici e infrastrutturali che punteggiano tutto il territorio italiano, la cui costruzione è rimasta sospesa. Si tratta prevalentemente di opere pubbliche: per motivi differenti (errori progettuali, decisioni politiche contrastanti, valutazioni errate dei costi, fallimenti delle imprese, palesi contraddizioni con i regolamenti vigenti, prosciugamento delle risorse disponibili) a un certo punto la loro costruzione si è interrotta, lasciando solo rovine abbandonate, ancora prima di qualsiasi loro utilizzo.
Alterazioni Video propone una serie di operazioni culturali e artistiche, a posteriori, che legittimano questi oggetti: film documentari, che interrogano protagonisti e utilizzatori; installazioni artistiche, che trasferiscono nell’ambito museale l’esperienza visiva e percettiva dell’Incompiuto, e un’ampia opera di documentazione e archiviazione, pensata per essere arricchita dal pubblico. Infatti la sommatoria di questi residui di futuri mai avvenuti è tale da rappresentare un vero e proprio stile architettonico ed estetico, che rappresenta l’Italia e l’epoca nella quale sono stati prodotti. La massima concentrazione di opere incompiute si trova in Sicilia, per cui il nucleo essenziale del lavoro e delle riflessioni parte da lì, immaginando quindi uno stile che si faccia nazionale.
Nel corso della ricerca condotta da Alterazioni Video, la città siciliana di Giarre è emersa come uno dei punti di maggiore concentrazione di opere incompiute: una rete di infrastrutture abbandonate, alcune delle quali quasi surreali per le destinazioni d’uso assegnate (lo stadio del polo, per esempio). In accordo con l’amministrazione pubblica, Alterazioni Video sta sviluppando una proposta concreta perché a Giarre sia istituito il Parco Archeologico dell’Incompiuto Siciliano, su un’area di 300 ettari. La prima tappa di questo processo consisterà in un concorso di idee, bandito dal Comune: un elemento distopico della convivenza civile potrebbe essere convertito in una risorsa turistica, che attribuisca nuovi valori e significati ai monumenti di un presente eterno.

Mercoledì 13 MAGGIO 2009
Incompiuto Siciliano
h. 18.30, ingresso libero
Centro di Documentazione di Connecting Cultures
via giorgio merula 62, 20142 Milano

scarica il comunicato stampa
scarica la scheda di progetto

col patrocinio di

Margarita Andreu. La città trasparente. Riflessi della Bicocca

admin — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:13:39 +0000

La città trasparente. Riflessi della Bicocca
un progetto di Margarita Andreu
intervengono Anna Daneri e Francesco Tiribelli

L’area della Bicocca – cuore di quel nucleo industriale che si era rapidamente costituito ai primi del Novecento nella zona nord di Milano – rappresenta un esempio unico in Europa per l’ampiezza dell’intervento di riqualificazione. Il concorso per la riprogettazione dell’area, indetto nel 1985 da Pirelli, fu vinto dallo studio Gregotti e Associati. Un grande polo universitario, uno spazio espositivo, un grande teatro, centri di ricerca, uffici, abitazioni: oggi la Bicocca è un quartiere nuovo – nato forse troppo rapidamente – ricco di servizi e collegamenti ma non ancora completamente assorbito dalla città circostante, non del tutto ‘vissuto’ e compreso dalle persone che vi abitano e che lo attraversano.
La periferia contemporanea è l’oggetto privilegiato delle fotografie di Margarita Andreu, spazi ipermoderni in cui le architetture spesso sovrastano le esistenze umane. Dello spazio architettonico la Andreu coglie principalmente le qualità linguistiche: i pieni, i vuoti, le geometrie, il riflettersi della luce, le trasparenze, le forme modulari, le qualità materiche delle strutture. Lo sguardo della fotografa catalana si perde nei dettagli di luce, forma e colore pervadendo le immagini di un particolare effetto di straniamento. Del nuovo quartiere Bicocca la fotografa coglie i forti elementi formali ed architettonici, ma quello che più profondamente la intriga sono gli aspetti contraddittori dei paesaggi periferici: lo stridente rapporto fra l’architettura razionale e la silenziosa e inafferrabile attività umana che si svolge al suo interno. All’interno di questo spazio moderno ideale gli esseri umani quasi galleggiano, come pesci in un grande acquario trasparente: studenti, impiegati, semplici passanti transitano, si incontrano, svolgono le loro azioni quotidiane nel tempo sospeso di queste architetture.
L’obiettivo fotografico si sofferma soprattutto sui luoghi di transito e di attesa: l’università, i bar, gli uffici, i grandi atri degli edifici moderni, gli spiazzi fra i palazzi, i depositi dei tram. Questi luoghi dove il tempo è sospeso rivelano allo sguardo i dettagli più inattesi: le tracce della pioggia su un vetro, delle erbacce che crescono ai margini di un cantiere, degli alberi di cipresso sulla strada delle vecchie fabbriche, alcune studentesse che chiacchierano dietro ad un vetro. È uno sguardo sensibile, quello di Margarita Andreu, capace di cogliere gli interstizi vitali del paesaggio contemporaneo, le sue qualità complesse e le forti contraddizioni. In questi interstizi si nasconde la poesia profonda di queste immagini.

Mercoledì 22 APRILE 2009
La città trasparente. Riflessi della Bicocca
h. 18.30, ingresso libero
Centro di Documentazione di Connecting Cultures
via giorgio merula 62, 20142 Milano

scarica il comunicato stampa
scarica la scheda di progetto

col patrocinio di

Marco Navarra_NOWA. Abitare Straniero

admin — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 14:11:25 +0000

Abitare straniero
un progetto di Marco Navarra_NOWA
intervengono Stefano Mirti e Mario Lupano

Marco Navarra pratica da molti anni un’idea di architettura intesa come occasione unica di trasformazione degli scarti urbani in risorse per la città e il territorio. I suoi campi d’intervento vanno dall’abitazione agli edifici pubblici, dall’architettura al paesaggio con una particolare attenzione alle tematiche della reinvenzione e della riparazione.
Il progetto di Abitare straniero nasce da una riflessione sull’identità che, attraverso un’esplorazione sulle azioni informali dell’abitare dei migranti, conduce all’immaginazione di un’architettura che rinnovi la sua forma e i suoi strumenti di intervento per aiutare a vivere la condizione di diversità.
La città di Mazara, piccolo ma significativo campione della mescolanza, degli incontri, dei conflitti e dei nuovi scenari dovuti ai flussi migratori è stata sottoposta ad un lavoro di ricerca sul territorio che ha portato da una parte all’elaborazione di una mappa dei ruderi presenti nella città, potenziali punti di intervento per realizzare nuove costruzioni, e dall’altra ad una documentazione delle modalità di abitazione, utilizzo, trasformazione dei luoghi privati e pubblici da parte delle comunità di stranieri che lì si sono insediate. Il risultato è un progetto che si articola in tre direzioni: un nuovo sistema di abitazioni, realizzato tramite nuove forme di partecipazione, che riutilizzi scarti di tutti i generi (dagli oggetti vecchi, alle case dei centri antichi, ai terreni inutilizzati), una biblioteca multietnica, sorta dagli spazi di una vecchia chiesa ormai sconsacrata, che si ponga come un luogo di incontro tra le diverse culture e una foresteria, progetto di cohousing per i corsisti dell’istituto arabo di cultura.
www.studionowa.com

19 MARZO 2009
Abitare Straniero
h. 18.30, ingresso libero
Centro di Documentazione di Connecting Cultures
via giorgio merula 62, 20142 Milano

scarica il comunicato stampa
scarica la scheda di progetto

col patrocinio di