UNIDEE - University of Ideas
UNIDEE NOTEBOOKS 2018 | N.1
Notes from the 2018 UNIDEE - University of Ideas residency programme
Cittadellarte Edizioni, 2019 ISBN: 978-88-98698-19-6 This booklet is part of the series of publications “UNIDEE NOTEBOOKS”. Curated and designed by Annalisa Zegna Translations: Elena Pasquali
Cover image: Photo from the UNIDEE module “Pattern, Integrity” mentored by Amy Franceschini and Lode Vranken (Futurefarmers), 2018. Credits UNIDEE.
UNIDEE - University of Ideas
UNIDEE NOTEBOOKS 2018 | N. 1
Notes from the 2018 UNIDEE - University of Ideas residency programme.
Modules, Residencies, Organisations UNIDEE Modules:
· Expanded body #2 Inhabiting Time. An experience about Time
in the Oasi Zegna mentors: Andrea Caretto and Raffaella Spagna; guests: José D. Edelstein, Marco Giardino. · Pattern, Integrity mentors: Amy Franceschini and Lode Vranken (Futurfarmers); guest: Livia Cahn. · Broadcasting the archive #10 mentors: Alessandra Saviotti and Gemma Medina Estupiñan (Arte Útil). UNIDEE Residencies:
· Daniela Delgado Viteri, grant by Fundación Museos de la Ciudad
(Ecuador), CAC Quito (Ecuador) and IILA Cultural Office in Rome (Italy); · Leyli Gafarova, grant by Yarat Contemporary Art Space (Azerbaijian); · Shayma Albess, grant by A.M. Qattan Foundation (Palestine); · Manjot Kaur, grant by Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation (India). UNIDEE Organisations: · Workshop of demopractic mapping with Alghero’s embassy (Italy); · YAYA 2018 workshop with A.M. Qattan Foundation (Palestine); · GEM-S 2018 Summer School with University of Milano-Bicocca (Italy); · One and one makes three, with ArtEZ University (The Netherlands). Cittadellarte - Fondazione Pistoletto, Biella
UNIDEE - University of Ideas, 2018 programme
Started by Michelangelo Pistoletto in 1999, UNIDEE – University of Ideas is the higher educational programme for art and social change of Cittadellarte – Fondazione Pistoletto. Weaving together moments of interdisciplinary research, knowledge sharing and practical activities, the objective of the programme is to provide the participants with inspiration, motivation and instruments to activate or develop artistic initiatives based on the engagement of local ecologies. Open to artists and professionals from all over the world through residential dynamics, the programme intends to form “artivators”, i.e. people working at the boundaries between artistic practices, processes of social change and collaborations with communities outside the art world. UNIDEE – University of Ideas is a research hub at the core of Cittadellarte’s very nature: it is devoted to the overarching vision stemming from an investigation into the relation between art and the societal fabric. Connected with the many unfoldings of the global/ situated debate investing all disciplines and areas of the human and post-human ecologies, UNIDEE research
revolves around the founding notions of Third Paradise (announced by Michelangelo Pistoletto) and demopraxy (instigated by Paolo Naldini), involving organisations of all kinds, scholars, activists, social innovators, artists, administrators, jurists, scientists, in an open but focused socially engaged practice.
visits and trips tailored to the interests of each artist.
The 2018 UNIDEE - University of Ideas programme is articulated through three types of activities: Modules, Residencies and Organisations.
Paolo Naldini, Director of Cittadellarte
The UNIDEE Modules are intensive weekly residential modules taking place at Cittadellarte, open to students, professionals, activists as well as members of society. They are held by mentors with the support of guests, for groups of 10 to 12 participants. The UNIDEE Residencies Emergent Geographies are international artists’ residencies organised in partnership with other institutions, mostly from less established distribution geographies. The residencies have been conceived and designed according to UNIDEE’s methodology, which combines practice with theory, through workshops, seminars and a series of meetings, studio
The UNIDEE Organisations are a series of workshops and seminars hosted in Cittadellarte and organised in collaboration with other institutions and universities.
UNIDEE Modules Spring / Summer Term
Expanded body #2 Inhabiting Time. An experience about Time in the Oasi Zegna in partnership with Fondazione Zegna mentored by Andrea Caretto and Raffaella Spagna with JosĂŠ D. Edelstein and Marco Giardino 9 / 16 July 2018 TAGS: Radical ecology, experience, aesthetic experimentation, non-hierarchical ontology, time and temporality, deep time. Participants: Ludwig Berger, Laura Harrington, Marit Mihklepp, Enrico Partengo, Meredith Root-Bernstein, Elisa Storelli. Mediator: Sara Cattin.
The module offered an immersive experience in the territory of the Oasi Zegna, a protected mountain area extending for about 100 sq. km. in Piedmont, in the Biellese Alps, between Trivero and the Cervo Valley. Starting from an aesthetic experimentation based on a nonhierarchical ontology, according to which all subjects (living and nonliving, plants, animals, rocks, objects, etc.) coexisting in that area were put on the same level, the participants were involved in a wide-spectrum debate on the concept of Time. Through a series of field experiences led by experts from various disciplines, the selected artists had the opportunity to experience first-hand some of the perceptive aspects of Time in a natural environment, through a comparison between the different temporalities characterising the natural systems: from the Deep Time attested by rocks and their transformation to the temporality of living beings (from the life span of a few minutes of some insects to the life span of hundreds or even thousands of years of trees), eventually questioning the concept of Time itself as a fundamental variable operated by physics in the last century. What is Time? How do we perceive the flow of Time and what is our relationship with it? What is Time for a plant? How can we approach the Deep Time of rocks? What is the relationship between the Time of machines, of human beings and natural cycles? What is free Time? What is Time for contemporary physics? The module represented an opportunity to discuss and reflect on these topics in an informal way, together with the mentors and the invited guests. The first part of the module was base-camped in the mountain refuge
Alpe Moncerchio (Bielmonte, BI), situated within the Oasi Zegna, and was characterized by a few walking excursions during which the participants – in direct contact with the natural environment of the Oasi Zegna - experimented in person with different perceptive aspects linked to Time. In the course of the excursions the mentors and the specialist guests involved the participants in individual and collective activities, observations, gathering of materials and discussions. The second part of the module was held in Cittadellarte (Biella) and consisted in a work of individual research through which each participant elaborated the experience of the previous days in the Oasi to eventually produce – under the guidance of the mentors – actions, works, devices, tales, as expressions of new ways of being in Time.
SCHEDULE JULY 9TH morning Guided tour of Cittadellarte, including the Pistoletto collection, the Arte Povera collection and the temporary exhibitions. Introduction to the Theorem of Trinamics, the symbol of the Third Paradise and the concept of Demopraxy. Distribution of a Notebook produced by the mentors to each participant, which will be used as a working tool during the workshop. lunch at Cittadellarte afternoon Trip to Trivero. Visit to Casa Zegna and Fondazione Zegna, overview through the Panoramica road, first contact with the territory. Transfer to Alpe Moncerchio hut in the late afternoon. Participants’ presentation: motivations and expectations. Participants and mentors will introduce themselves
through a short story of their experience (education, interests, attitudes). Presentation of the module’s programme and introduction of the main topics: discussion about the concept of Time and the perception of the temporal dimension. Overnight stay in Alpe Moncerchio hut. JULY 10TH morning Hike in the woods, from Alpe Moncerchio to Alpe Scheggiola. packed lunch afternoon Field works: exercises of Time perception. The different temporalities characterizing natural systems. Overnight stay in Alpe Moncerchio hut. JULY 11TH morning Session of individual work at Bosco del Sorriso. packed lunch afternoon Bath in the Cervo river. Visit to some places of interest near the Oasi Zegna: Sassaia, Rosazza. Overnight stay in Alpe Moncerchio hut. JULY 12TH morning - packed lunch - afternoon The discovery of Deep Time. One day excursion with prof. Marco Giardino, starting from Bocchetto Sessera, to discover the Supervulcano and 300 million years of geological history in Valsessera. Observations and field trials. Return journey to Cittadellarte in the late afternoon. JULY 13TH morning Lecture by prof. José D. Edelstein. PhD, theoretical physicist, Department of Particle Physics, University of Santiago de Compostela. afternoon Collective discussion with prof. José D. Edelstein and the mentors.
JULY 14TH morning Session of individual work and discussion with mentors. afternoon Collective discussion about the participants’ projects. JULY 15TH morning Session of individual work and discussion with mentors. afternoon Collective discussion about the participants’ projects. JULY 16TH morning Finalisation of the participants’ projects and set-up. afternoon Public presentation of the projects and discussion about the outcome of the workshop.
REFERENCES · Richard D.G. Irvine, “Deep time: an anthropological problem”. · Jan Masschelein, “E-ducating the gaze: the idea of a poor pedagogy”, Ethics and Education, 5:1, 43-53. · Kensy Cooperrider, Rafael Núñez, “How We Make Sense of Time”, Scientific American, 2016. · Tim Ingold, “The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill”, Routledge, 2011. · Ernst Zürcher, “Plants and the Moon Traditions and Phenomena”. · Laura Spinney, “How time flies”, The Guardian, 24 Feb 2005. · Tim Ingold, “Art, Science and the Meaning of Research”. Text of a talk delivered at GAM, Turin, March 2018.
We spent the first four days exploring Oasi Zegna, walking and discussing about different ways of perceiving time. The mentors gave each participant a Notebook, as a tool to use during the module. They suggested that none of us should use phones, alarm clocks or watches.
“You are a time system. Observe the oscillation of your breath, how it interacts with your movements and the territory. The external temperature, the internal digestion, your thoughts, the colours of the landscape.” (ES)
“Stay in one place, or move around. Pay attention to your breath, for 100 breaths or so. Move, observe, listen as slow as you possibly can. Notice also the tiniest organisms, processes, sounds (if you can, listen also to the cars). Try for example to breath following the rhythm of the movements of the clouds. Repeat if you like. Let your body be taken into the possible rhythms of other beings.”
“Spiralling as an alternative encounter. Find a position. Lie, breath, rest… You may want to remain here for a while. Slowly walk (or by other means) your way out of this position in a non linear spiral formation. This could be over metres or kilometres. Whilst walking the spiral, consider, touch, ignore, feel or ponder the following goal. By looking both within and outside yourself, what forces are inhabiting this time? Return to the centre of the spiral in whatever way feels right.” (LH) “Walk in the Oasi until you meet a wild animal (mammal).” (RS) “Dig a hole into the ground. Take some rocks from the hole. Try to draw them in different positions. On the same paper write the issues of the rock. One object must be buried into the hole. Then fill the hole with earth.” (EP)
Walk and excursion with guest Prof. Marco Giardino We explored and read the territory from a geomorphological perspective, based on visible and invisible elements: trails, landslides, streams and waterfalls, slopes, vegetation, trees and shrubs, soil colours, rocks and stones.
Talk by guest Prof. José D. Edelstein “The illusory spell of the instant” We talked about time from the point of view of physics, exploring concepts related to light, gravity, curved space, relativity, equivalence principle, time reversibility, black holes, string theory, quantum physics, etc.
Andrea Caretto and Raffaella Spagna asked the group to collect small branches during our excursions. When we went back to Cittadellarte we lit a fire and burned them to make small charcoals for drawing.
At the end of the module there was the final meeting and presentation of the artists’ research projects, with a talk and discussion with special guests from Fondazione Zegna and Cittadellarte - Fondazione Pistoletto.
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Elisa Storelli Notes for a travelogue (Oasi Zegna) performance
The work is a speculation about time moving and changing, as mountains do, in a very slow way. It starts by comparing time and mountains, and evolves into explaining how time was not the precise pattern we know nowadays by telling about the development of clocks and their (un)precision in timekeeping. It ends with an invitation to think and use time differently.
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Enrico Partengo Temporal sequence of a trace and Hybrids installation
“During my stay in Oasi Zegna I did an imprint of a rock using the frottage technique. The positive mould of the surface is obtained by rubbing pencils or graphite. I then photocopied the frottage and then the copy of the copy. The result is a series of 114 photocopies on which the subject gradually fades, dissolving, moving up, leaving ink stains and a shapeless mark. Along the banks of the river Cervo, I happened to come across a branch partially covered in silver foil. This natural but at the same time artificial object, almost domestic, offered me the opportunity to reflect on Hybrids: a system of objects generated by the meeting of natural and artificial materials.� EP
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Marit Mihklepp Lithic listening
audiovisual installation
Consisting of a video zooming into the visual and audible landscapes of stones, some of the stones collected from Oasi Zegna nature park and the instruments/ cones used to amplify the sounds, this piece studies the possibilities of releasing fossil sounds from the lithic matter and collaborating with stones to tune human senses to the immense scale of deep time.
→ Meredith Root-Bernstein Ombra di pressione/ Pressure shadow monotype
Monotype made on a glass plate by drawing with a birch twig dipped in ink. Monotype is the simplest printing technique. It has no material negative. It cannot be repeatedly printed. “Continuity of lichens / Beech Fagus sylvatica bent by a landslide / Birch Betula pendula, a pioneer species of the Piemonte / Quartz given time to form inside pressure shadow in schist rock outcrop / Time is the flow to which entropy condemns us.”
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Ludwig Berger Babbling
game and video documentation
Players: Running water, plants, humans, stones, etc. Restrictions: No speaking (1) A stone or another thing inside or close to the water emits a call to the human player. (2) The human player places, replaces or removes the thing into, within or out of the running water. (3) The water responds to the action by changing its sonic expression.
Ludwig Berger Geophonograph
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performance
(1) Insert two earplugs into your external auditory canals. (2) Take two branches, at least as long as your body (3) Press the branches against different parts of your skull. (4) Walk slowly and drag the branches behind you (5) Read the ground through the branches’ vibrations in your bones.
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Laura Harrington Cleambering #1 (Oasi Zegna) short film
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Meredith Root-Bernstein / Laura Harrington Cleambering Manifesto
Cleambering is a short film study of four people ‘cleambering’: collaborating, traversing, engaging and unfolding with rocks in an improvisational, fluid and intuitive way. The film frames the soles of the feet in direct contact with rocks whilst continuing to exist as part of a wider landscape.
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Sara Cattin Gite fuori tempo. Una raccolta di esercizi, giochi e dialoghi per le guide dell’Oasi Zegna in Val Sessera. “In Val Sessera, looking at the landscape means time travelling. The rocks we can observe on the roadsides going down the valley and those along the river Sessera, even the small fragments that we find on the ground, might be millions or hundreds of millions years old. [...] Gite Fuori Tempo are exercises, games, and dialogues to measure our own perception of time in relation to the time of the environment.”
ANDREA CARETTO / RAFFAELLA SPAGNA Andrea Caretto (Turin, Italy, 1970) and Raffaella Spagna (Rivoli, Italy, 1967) explore the profound relationships linking human beings to the environment. They conceive art as inquiry, a tool to investigate the multiple dimensions of reality: formal, qualitative and physical quantitative aspects of matter but also philosophical and social ones. In keeping with their educational backgrounds – Landscape Architecture for Spagna, Natural Sciences and Scientific Museology for Caretto – their projects generate complex installations that simultaneously present the study, demonstration and experimentation of their relationship with nature. They investigate the links between human beings and other organisms and inorganic matter, developing longterm projects. They have been working together on a regular basis since 2002, exhibiting in public and private institutions in Italy and abroad. They are among the founders of the artist collective “Diogene” (www.progettodiogene. eu) and collaborate with the research Center IRIS (Interdisciplinary Research Institute on Sustainability) of the University of Turin and Brescia. They live and work in Cambiano (Turin, Italy). www.esculenta.org
Among the institutions with which they have collaborated: AIR Krems and kunstraumarcade, Austria, FieldWorks_ Wachau (2015); Domaine de Chamarande, France, Vivre/s (2014); Merz Foundation, Turin and Riso Museum, Palermo, Italy, Meteorite in giardino (2014); GAM-Civic Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art, Turin, Italy, Collezione Sistemica (2012); Khoj International Artists Associations, New Delhi, India, “In Context, food edition I”, Delhi Hand Cart (2012); Mudam, Musée d’Art Moderne GrandDuc Jean, Luxembourg, Sketches of Space (2010); Marino Marini Museum, Florence, Italy, Azioni 2000-2006 (2006); MART Museum, Rovereto, Italy, Eurasia, Geographic Cross-overs in Art (2008); PAV-Living Art Park, Turin, Italy, Sic Vos non Vobis, Internaturalità, Village Green, Ecosoft Art, Living Material (2014, 2013, 2009, 2008, 2007); CAIRN-Centre d’Art Informel de Recherchesur la Nature, Digne-lesBains, France, 1Arbre_Populus nigra; De La Transformation Des Choses (2011, 2008); Centre d’Art Le Parvis, Ibos, France, Matières Premières (2007); Obra Social Caja Madrid, Spain, Los Limites del Crecimiento (2007); T1 Turin Triennal, Castello di Rivoli Contemporary Art Museum, The Pantagruel Syndrom, (2005); Villa Croce Contemporary Art Museum, Genova, Italy, Empowerment (2004); Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation, Turin, Italy, Exit and How Latitudes Become Forms (2002; 2003).
JOSÉ D. EDELSTEIN
MARCO GIARDINO
José Edelstein (Buenos Aires, 1968) is Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Santiago de Compostela. He studied physics at the Balseiro Institute and his PhD was obtained from the University of La Plata. He spent postdoctoral periods at the University of Santiago de Compostela, Harvard and the IST in Lisbon. He published more than sixty scientific papers in the main international journals of high energy theoretical physics, and three books: “Antimatter, magic and poetry” (2014, with Andrés Gomberoff; Spanish National Award of University Editions 2015), “Strings and superstrings” (2016, with Gastón Giribet, translated into Italian and French) and “Einstein for the perplexed” (2018, with A. Gomberoff). He collaborated with artists ranging from visual and textile art (Irene Dubrovsky), fashion design (Anabella Bergero, Andrea Urquizu, Cecilia Hernández and Matías Hidalgo), and held public conversations with writers (Agustín Fernández-Mallo, Juan J. Becerra and Daniel Guebel). His work in Science Communication was awarded with the Prize of the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology 2012, and the Spanish Center for Particle, Astroparticle and Nuclear Physics 2010, 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2016.
Marco Giardino is a Professor of Physical Geography and Geomorphology at the Department of Earth Sciences of the University of Turin, Italy. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the UNESCO Chair in Sustainable Development and Territory Management, a member of the Italian Glaciology Committee, the coordinator of the ProGeoPiemonte projects (promotion of the Piedmont geological heritage), the coordinator of the European geoNatHaz project for the EUCanada university exchanges. He is co-chair of the IAG/AIG (International Association of Geomorphologists) for the working group on Landform Evaluation for Geodiversity. He is specialised in the study of the Alps, in particular in their recent evolution and natural risks due to climatic and tectonic conditions; he also studies geodiversity and geoheritage in order to develop effective geoconservation strategies. He is the author of hundreds of scientific articles, popular texts and multimedia products aiming at increasing public awareness in the field of geosciences and environmental education. He is the representative of the Erasmus programme for the School of Natural Sciences of the University of Turin. He is the coordinator of the scientific activities of the Sesia Val Grande Geopark.
UNIDEE Modules Fall Term
Pattern, Integrity mentored by Amy Franceschini and Lode Vranken (Futurefarmers) with Livia Cahn 29 Oct / 1 November 2018 TAGS: Systems, transportation, urban rural, trade, ethnography, interventions, architecture, mapping, walking, social sculpture, creative placemaking, public art, civic engagement, urban development, participatory art. Participants: Shayma Albess, Sara Cattin, Daniela Delgado Viteri, Leyli Gafarova, Manjot Kaur, Nicolò Molinari, Diana Pacelli.
Hosts Amy Franceschini (artist) and Lode Vranken (Architect) of Futurefarmers brought a backpack of their last 8 years of work on Flatbread Society, a public bakehouse and farm in Oslo, Norway and a Site for Rural Regeneration, a tree house meeting space and exchange radio station at Pollinaria in Abruzzo, Italy. Both of these durational projects draw from fading agrarian practices as a means to create new spatial and social engagements. Amy and Lode shared their experiences of each of these projects as they relate to Buckminster Fuller’s idea of Pattern Integrity. Within this module Futurefarmers problematized the language of “pattern” and “integrity” through four days of actions and inquiry. Using this Fuller quote as a reference point, they looked at an expanded ecology of practices connected to the knot; labor, regional politics/economies, communications, folklore, tradition and transportation. They looked specifically to the local history and currents of wool production to uncover this complex of intra and interactions. They worked closely with Livia Cahn, invited guest, to inscribe new ethnographic approaches to their research and engagement. Quick actions and built environments were enacted to articulate the research done in the module. Much of the discourse of this module was rooted in readings and examples of other artists/researchers from around the world, but most of the work was based on research of the surrounding community. Each day had field explorations and a round up of our encounters articulated in chosen formal modalities.
SCHEDULE OCTOBER 29TH morning Guided tour to Cittadellarte, Pistoletto and Arte Povera collections and temporary exhibitions. Introduction to the Theorem of Trinamics, the symbol of the Third Paradise and the concept of Demopraxy. afternoon Introductions through readings. Discussion about projects or works which participants are interested in. Discussion of projects or work participants are interested in. Visit wool / textile fabric. Group discussion. OCTOBER 30TH morning SITUATIONAL INTELLEGENCE – Exercise in quick / rapid prototyping + improvisation. afternoon Visit sheep farmer or exporter of wool in the city. Group discussion – How to enact the knot/ PROJECT IDEAS. OCTOBER 31ST morning Discussion: Three Ecologies/ Chaosmosis. Share artworks examples. afternoon Build Looms. Follow me home. Discussion. NOVEMBER 1ST morning Exercise the looms in chosen locations. afternoon Dinner with people encountered in former days. REFERENCES The mentor will prepared a reader for participants with key texts and films, some of which were discussed during the week. The reader included pieces by authors, artists, curators and intellectuals, such as:
Articles/Texts · Artist as Protagonist http://www.commonlands.net/readers/ art_as_protagonist_eng.pdf Books (For further readings): · Autonauts of the Cosmoroute: A Timeless Voyage from Paris to Marseilles by Julio Cortazarand Carol Dunlop · I Seem to Be a Verb: Environment and Man’s Future Mass Market by R. Buckminster Fuller · The Three Ecologies, Felix Guittari https://monoskop.org/images/4/44/ Guattari_Felix_The_Three_Ecologies. pdf · The Ghost in the Atom, A Discussion of the Mysteries of Quantum Physics by P. C. W. Davies and, Julian R. Brown, pgs 24- 28 · A Pattern Language, Christopher Alexander · Chaosmosis, Felix Guattari http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ ucsd/3somesPlus/From_Aesthetic_ Autonomy_to_Autonomist_Aestheticslibre.pdf · Chapter One: The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins, ANNA LOWENHAUPT TSING. http://assets. press.princeton.edu/chapters/s10581. pdf Entire book: http:// naturalezacienciaysociedad.org/wpcontent/uploads/sites/3/2016/02/ Tsing-Anna-Lowenhaupt-Themushroom-at-the-end-of-the-world-onthe-possibility-of-life-in-capitalist-ruinsPrinceton-University-Press-2015.pdf Film: · Czech Dreams, Vít Klusák, Filip Remunda. · Darwin’s Nightmare, Hubert Sauper. · Werkmeister Harmonies, Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky. · The General Line, Eisenstein.
We talked about the concept of situational intelligence and context ecology. The mentors asked the group to experience the day through the focus of an object, and then create a performance / action able to embody and transmit the lived experience.
We explored some issues related to the complex process of wool production in the Biellese area, thanks to the meeting with some people, like the shepherd Andrea and his flock of sheep, and the Englishman Nigel Thompson, called “the sheepman”, with his company in Miagliano. Moreover, we had a great tour of the “Filatura di Chiavazza” factory by Zegna Baruffa Lane Borgosesia, where we delved more deeply into the different phases of processing raw wool, spinning and high quality yarn production.
Meeting with guest Livia Cahn
Excerpt from “Art as Protagonist?” http://www.commonlands.net/readers/ art_as_protagonist_eng.pdf
She presented her research projects, such as Terres des villes. Enquêtes potagères de Bruxelles aux premières saisons du 21e siècle, a book based on a multidisciplinary research about the tradition of the urban garden as a practice for new collective experiences of community and social development of the urban environment.
We played a card game to explore the concept of progress and the linearity of time, based on our visits around Biella focused on the wool production and the crisis of industry.
Futurefarmers Futurefarmers is a group of diverse practitioners aligned through an interest in making work that is relevant to the time and place surrounding us. Founded in 1995, the design studio serves as a platform to support art projects, an artists in residence programme and their research interests. They are artists, researchers, designers, architects, scientists and farmers with a common interest in creating frameworks for exchange that catalyse moments of “not knowing�. Amy Franceschini and Lode Vranken presented some of their projects to the group: Further On... to Land (2018), Flatbread Society (since 2012), A Variation on Powers of Ten (2012), Erratum (2010). www.futurefarmers.com
The loom We built a loom and used the act of weaving to perform Q&A sessions, as a performative and active way to discuss and question our position in relation to some central issues in contemporary culture, history and art production.
AMY FRANCESCHINI
LODE VRANKEN
Amy Franceschini (b. 1970 Patterson, CA, US) lives and works in San Francisco and Gent, Belgium. She is the founder of Futurefarmers, an international group of artists, activists, farmers and architects with a common interest in creating frameworks of participation that recalibrate our cultural compass. Their work uses various media to enact situations that disassemble habitual apparatus. Through public art, architecture, museum installations, publications and temporary educational programs inside institutions, they have transformed public policy, urban planning, educational curricula and public transportation plans. Futurefarmers’ work often creates relational sculptures and tools for audiences to gain insight into deeper fields of inquiry- not only to imagine, but also to participate in and initiate change in the places we live. Futurefarmers are the lead artists of Flatbread Society, a permanent public artwork in Oslo, Norway and their most recent project, Seed Journey, a floating school moving by sail between Oslo and Istanbul. Amy’s work has been exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Whitney Biennial in New York, MOMA, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Canadian Center for Architecture in Montreal, the 2014 Venice Architectural Biennale, the 2017 Sharjah Biennale, the 2018 Taipei Biennale and she is the recipient of a 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship, 2017 Herb Alpert Award for Visual Arts and a 2019 Rome Prize Fellow in Design.
Lode Vranken has been practicing architecture internationally since 1993. In 1993, he received his masters in a UN course on Human Settlements + Architectural Philosophy from the KU Leuven, Belgium. He has been teaching since 2005 as a Ned delegate at The Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain and from 1993-94 at the Asian Institute for Technolgy in Bangkok, Thailand. Lode co-founded the research coalition, De Bouwerij in Belgium that focuses on social living structures for passive houses and zero¨energy construction. His research is focused on new concepts for small, self-sufficient living units; folding buildings, kinetic structures, rolling shelters all with zero carbon dioxide emission. He is also a partner of Dear Pigs in Belgium and member of the The Ghent School for Metaphysics www.debouwerij.com www.dearpigs.be
LIVIA CAHN Livia Cahn (b. 1986) is trained in urban anthropology, graduated from the University of Cambridge (UK) then from the EHESS in Paris. She is currently based in Brussels, at the University of Saint-Louis, where she is a member of the collective ‘Ecologies de Bruxelles’ (https://ecobxl. hypotheses.org/) that tackles a host of environmental questions and explores ways to narrate them. With the other members of the team she is coauthor of “Terres des Villes, enquêtes potagères de Bruxelles au premières saisons du 21ième siècle” (éditions de l’éclat, 2017). Based on an active engagement in the urban context, this book is about the struggle to defend agricultural spaces in the city. Livia’s collaboration with the architects ‘Rotor asbl’ in co-curating “Behind the Green Door” in Oslo (2014) and sometimes with artists is also an enquiry into the different ways of relating immersive, practice based, field research.
UNIDEE Modules Fall Term
Broadcasting the archive #10 mentored by Alessandra Saviotti and Gemma Medina Estupiñan (Arte Útil)
3 / 7 December 2018 TAGS: Arte Útil, activism, usership, radical pedagogy, learning by doing
Participants: Lidia Zhudro, Farah Michel, Maria Fonseca, Esthela Meza, Maria Giovanna Sodero, Eleonora Mattozzi.
Broadcasting the archive aimed to re-activate and mediate the Arte Útil’s archive within and beyond the museum context, developing a series of activities, programs, workshops and discussions hosted by different organizations. Starting from archive cards, sound and video documents, interviews, a lexicon of terms and so on, our objective was to break the physical walls of the institution through a call for action, becoming a source of inspiration both for a specialized public as well as a non-trained contemporary art audience. During the workshop specifically conceived for UNIDEE, we started analyzing some case studies in relation to the Arte Útil criteria, discussed some terms from ‘Toward a lexicon of usership’ by Stephen Wright, and experimented with different methodologies related to the idea of ‘learning by doing’ through physical exercises in the space. Arte Útil roughly translates into English as ‘useful art’, but it proposes considering art as a tool or a device to be used in search for sustainable solutions to social change. The notion of what constitutes Arte Útil has been developed via a set of criteria formulated by Tania Bruguera in collaboration with curators and researchers at Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven), Queens Museum (New York) and Grizedale Arts (Coniston). At the core of the Asociacion de Arte Útil is an archive of almost 300 case studies that has been presented and activated by the members of the Asociacion through numerous workshops, exhibitions, and seminar throughout the world; it is accessible for free at www.arte-util.org.
SCHEDULE DECEMBER 3RD morning Guided tour of Cittadellarte, Pistoletto and Arte Povera collections and temporary exhibitions. Introduction to the Theorem of Trinamics, the symbol of the Third Paradise and the concept of Demopraxy. afternoon Presentations who is who, introduction to Arte Útil and its criteria: Arte Útil roughly translates into English as ‘useful art’, but its meaning goes further suggesting art as a tool or device to provoke social change. The definition of Arte Útil was determined via a set of criteria that was formulated in 2013 for Tania Bruguera’s ‘The Museum of Arte Útil’ at the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (NL). In this session we analyzed the 8 criteria that have been followed by researchers in composing the Arte Útil archive. Exercise about the coefficient of art: in his famous lecture ’The Creative Act’, Marcel Duchamp defines the art coefficient as a subjective mechanism that produces art à l’état brut, so to say in a sort of raw state. He affirms that artists go from intention to realization through a series of subjective reactions: the result is a discrepancy between the intention and the realization of the work of art; a difference which the artist cannot totally control. In other words, the ‘art coefficient’ is like an arithmetical relation between the unexpressed but intended and the unintentionally expressed. The spectator is the other subject that completes the work of art: s/he brings its inner value to the external world. In the context of Arte Útil, in his book ’Toward a Lexicon of Usership’ Stephen Wright points out a series of questions linked to the idea of usership: ‘could it be that art is no longer (or perhaps never was) a
minority practice, but rather something practiced by a majority, appearing with varying coefficients in different contexts? what coefficient of art do we have here? or there? what is the coefficient of art in such and such a gesture, object or practice?’ what is the coefficient of art in our practice? DECEMBER 4TH morning Introduction to key terms related to Arte Útil from ‘Toward a Lexicon of Usership’ by Stephen Wright. afternoon What does collaboration mean? Exercise about ‘Dos and Don’ts’ of Arte Útil: we approached the topic of collaboration through a series of easy physical exercises. Participants working in groups speculated about the best practices around Arte Útil and/or socially engaged art and presented their scenarios. We concluded the session talking about the side effects and we read some part of Marina Garces’s ‘Honesty with the real’ and Medina, Saviotti’s ‘Broadcasting the archive in Barcelona: Analysing the side effects of Arte Útil projects’. DECEMBER 5TH morning Case studies: how to select them? This session focused on a collective selection process for case studies to be potentially included in the Arte Útil archive. We had a look at the latest submissions and had a Skype conversation with Kathrin Böhm, initiator of ‘Company Drinks’, an art project in the shape of a drink company. Two of the projects related to food developed by Fondazione Pistoletto in Biella are ‘Let Eat Bi’ and ‘Terre Abbandonate’: could they be potentially included in the Arte Útil archive? what is the urgency of the initiators and how did the community help their realization? what does it imply for the users to be part of them?
We visited the market in Biella related to the projects and we had a chat with the producers. afternoon Discussion with Armona Pistoletto, initiator of ‘Let Eat Bi’ and ‘Terre Abbandonate’ Exercise: what’s your urgency? is art the answer? Participants worked in groups to define a possible urgency to tackle and speculated about a possible Arte Útil project to implement. Can the urgency of a particular territory be identified as a personal urgency? DECEMBER 6TH morning Taking ownership, Inverting roles, Hacking ‘Broadcasting the archive #10’: we started the morning with a Q&A session about the previous 3 days. Then we reversed the roles and asked the participants to take ownership of the module and propose a group activity to do. It could be anything: a yoga class, a walk outside the room, a reading, a Karaoke session... but what is the purpose of it? who are your users? what are your expectations? how is it a tool for change? is there any pedagogical value? afternoon 1h of follow up discussion and back to the case studies selection. DECEMBER 7TH morning Presentation about the use of the archive, the toolkit, the certificate of Usership, the Office of Arte Útil and the Asociación de Arte Útil. Working in groups to prepare a toolkit for ‘Broadcasting the archive #10’: which key questions would you like to add? which keywords can we use as tags? which exercises do we want to include in the toolkit? which texts? afternoon Evaluation of the week: what would you like to take with you after the end of the module? Assignments for the future. evening Party.
REFERENCES The mentor prepared a reader for participants with key texts, some of which were discussed during the week. The reader included pieces by authors, artists, curators and intellectuals, such as: Articles/Texts: · Stephen Wright, ‘Toward a Lexicon of Usership’, free at www.arte-util.org; · WochenKlausur, ‘Let’s talk about another Concept’ oncurating.org ‘After the turn: art education beyond the museum’, Issue 24/December 2014; · Marina Garces, ‘Honesty with the real’, Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, Vol.4, 2012; http://www.arte-util.org/projects Books (For further readings): · AA.VV., ‘What’s the Use? Constellation of Art, History and Knowledge: A Critical Reader’. Amsterdam: Valiz, 2016; · Paulo Freire, ‘The Pedagogy of the oppressed’. New York and Lodnon: Continuum, 2015.
Asociacion de Arte Útil The Asociación de Arte Útil was initiated by the artist Tania Bruguera and, in line with the Criteria of Arte Útil, it is now being developed by a growing user group into an international body to promote ways for art to work effectively in ordinary life and to initiate and support new initiatives that fulfil the Criteria of Arte Útil. Arte Útil roughly translates into English as ‘useful art’ but it goes further suggesting art as a tool or device. Arte Útil draws on artistic thinking to imagine, create and implement tactics that change how we act in society. The Arte Útil Archive is designed as a tool kit for users, hosting projects and information related to Arte Útil. It is intended as a site for research and exchange for its users. http://www.arte-util.org
Arte Útil projects should: 1) Propose new uses for art within society 2) Use artistic thinking to challenge the field within which it operates 3) Respond to current urgencies 4) Operate on a 1:1 scale 5) Replace authors with initiators and spectators with users 6) Have practical, beneficial outcomes for its users 7) Pursue sustainability 8) Re-establish aesthetics as a system of transformation
In the context of Arte Útil, in his book Toward a Lexicon of Usership Stephen Wright points out a series of questions linked to the idea of usership: ‘could it be that art is no longer (or perhaps never was) a minority practice, but rather something practised by a majority, appearing with varying coefficients in different contexts? what coefficient of art do we have here? or there? what is the coefficient of art in such and such a gesture, object or practice? what is the coefficient of art in our practice?’ We read and discussed some key terms that helped us find a common ground in retooling the existent conceptual lexicon around usership. We familiarized with terms such as 1:1 scale, Extraterritorial reciprocity, Hacking, Loopholes, Double Ontology, which could be used as tags to categorize the case studies.
Annette Krauss Unlearning Exercises. Art Organizations as Sites for Unlearning (Valiz, 2018) A set of collective “unlearning exercises” to make way for a culture of equality, difference and fairness in art organizations. This book aims to inspire active critical investigation of normative structures and practices in order to become aware and get rid of taken-for-granted “truths” and values.
Stephen Wright, ‘Toward a Lexicon of Usership’, free at www.arte-util.org
Stephen Wright Toward a Lexicon of Usership
CASE STUDY #1 Company Drinks Skype meeting with guest Kathrin Bรถhm about the Company Drinks project, an art project in the shape of a drink company. http://companydrinks.info/
CASE STUDY #2 Let Eat Bi Talk with Armona Pistoletto about the Let Eat Bi market and Terre Abbandonate projects. www.cittadellarte.it/en/let-eat-bi www.terreabbandonate.com
GEMMA MEDINA ESTUPIÑAN Gemma Medina Estupiñan (b.1975, Spain) is a curator and Art Historian (PhD). She is interested in the relationship between contemporary art and society, participating in processes that fall outside standard artistic discourse, and bringing art closer to the non-specialized audiences. She fosters connections and collaborative projects with artists, designers and communities as a medium to reflect on art practices and the art history. Since 2008, she has worked with the Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven, NL) in diverse experimental and speculative projects like “Be(com)ing Dutch” (2008), “Play Van Abbe” (2009) and “Artistic Strategies in Psychiatry” (2017). She was part of the curatorial team of “The Museum of Arte Útil” and since 2014, she is collaborating as curator and mediator for the Asociación de Arte Útil. In 2015 she joined The Umbrella, a collective of social designers and researchers focused on connecting communities through art and co-design. The Mondriaan Fonds awarded her in 2015 for “Broadcasting the archive”, a project to emancipate the usership around the Arte Útil archive and for “Agents of Change” that faces the relation between the institution (Van Abbemuseum) with a network of art, social design and community projects in Eindhoven. Both ongoing projects have activated alternative forms of curatorial mediation, rethinking about the role of art and institutions, and how local constituencies can use them.
In 2017, she was the facilitator of the Escuela de Arte Útil, at the YBCA, San Francisco (US) and, in 2018, she has coordinated the Escuela at MUAC, Mexico City (MX). She has been a guest lecturer at Design Academy in Eindhoven (NL); Universidad del País Vasco (SP); Iceland Academy of the Arts (IC); and Royal College of Art (UK), among others. She teaches at the ArtEZ - International Master Artist Educator in Arnhem (NL).
ALESSANDRA SAVIOTTI Alessandra Saviotti (b.1982, Italy) is a curator and organizer. Her focus is on the continuous interaction with artists. By relating constantly with them, she participates actively in the artistic process from the beginning to the end. Her work aims to realize projects where the public is actively involved as co-producer and ordinary space gains new value thanks to the temporary incursion of art. Her reflection is taking into consideration collaborative processes according to the motto ‘cooperation is better than competition’. She is a co-founder of the art collective Aspra.mente (2006), a group which focuses on the common definition of ‘work in progress’, seeking the contribution of operators in other fields than art for interdisciplinary projects that are free from time constraints. She was part of the curatorial team of the ‘Museum of Arte Útil’ at the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (NL) and since 2014 she has been collaborating with the Asociación de Arte Útil especially aiming at emancipating the usership around the Arte Útil Archive. In 2017 she was guest lecturer at the San Francisco Art Institute, California College of the Arts, San Francisco (US), and she was the coordinator of the Escuela de Arte Útil at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (US). She teaches at ArtEZ - International Master Artist Educator, Arnhem (NL).
Since 2007 has been working internationally in collaboration with several institutions such as SFMOMA (US), MAXXI, Rome (IT), Delfina Foundation, London (UK), Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (UK), Visible Project (IT), Manifesta 7 (IT). She is a 2013-14 Jan van Eyck Akademie fellow, a 2015 Mondriaan Foundation grantee and a 2014 Demo Movin’Up grantee.
UNIDEE Residencies Fall Term
OPEN STUDIO
Emergent Geographies
Daniela Delgado Viteri, Leyli Gafarova, Manjot Kaur, Shayma Albess UNIDEE - University of Ideas at Cittadellarte - Fondazione Pistoletto 9th November 2018, 6.30 pm - 9 pm
On the occasion of UNIDEE Residencies’ open studio day, the four artists in residence, Daniela Delgado Viteri, Leyli Gafarova, Manjot Kaur and Shayma Albess, presented a few works and had a public talk with the curator Valerio Del Baglivo to introduce their original contexts. The title of the day, Emergent Geographies, refers to an interest in the development of a global pedagogical model, which has animated the UNIDEE programme from the very beginning: the variety of socio-political contexts the participants in the 20-year-long programme have come from has represented an
invaluable resource for the elaboration of processes of knowledge able to question traditional educational models. The two-month UNIDEE Residencies at Cittadellarte - Fondazione Pistoletto have been developed in collaboration with institutional partners: A.M. Qattan Foundation (Palestine), Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation (India), FundaciĂłn Museos de la Ciudad (Ecuador) / CAC - Centro de Arte Contemporaneo (Quito, Ecuador) / IILA - Istituto Italo-Latino Americano cultural office in Rome, Yarat Contemporary Art Space (Azerbaijan).
UNIDEE Residencies Fall Term
Daniela Delgado Viteri joint grant by Fundaciรณn Museos de la Ciudad, CAC - Centro de Arte Contemporaneo (Quito, Ecuador) and IILA - Istituto Italo-Latino Americano cultural office in Rome September - November 2018
Daniela Delgado Viteri (1987, Ecuador) is a filmmaker, graduated at Universidad del Cine (Argentina) and Fresnoy Studio National des Arts (France). She currently lives and works in Quito, Ecuador. Her films are the documentation of processes she often performs with groups of people in a participative way. Her films have been shown in festivals such as Rotterdam Film Festival, Rencontres Internationals and CPH-DOX. She has participated in residencies and exhibitions around the world. Including France, USA, Germany and Argentina.
Daniela Delgado Viteri Shortcuts 3 videos, 5’ each
I asked a man what the Law was. He answered that it was the guarantee of the exercise of possibility. That man was named Galli Mathias. I ate him. Oswaldo de Andrade, Cannibalistic Manifesto
Daniela Delgado Viteri is a documentarist who collaborates with non-professional actors who accept to follow shared performative processes. Delgado considers documentaries as an excuse for a collective expression in which participants are lead by self-imposed instructions and through absurd and visceral actions, e.g. asking them to take
a journey towards an inexistent destination, or to impersonate a film character in their intimate sphere, or to gather to invent a new language. Shortcuts is a series of videos of imaginary interviews with people taking shortcuts in their daily lives as a strategy to circumvent control mechanisms. For the characters in Viteri’s videos, shortcuts are alternative forms of rebellion and resilience, like joining political rallies for the free food and music, or taking money from tourists who want to see their exotic homes, or not being willing to die for their country, among other things.
UNIDEE Residencies Fall Term
Leyli Gafarova grant by Yarat Contemporary Art Space, Azerbaijan September - November 2018
Leyli Gafarova (1990, Azerbaijan) received her Master’s degree in film directing from the film academy RITCS in Brussels. Her films represent a search for a rudimentary form of narrative where she explores events of everyday life with great attention to character study, drama and intimacy. Her interests include post-soviet societies, urbanism and female/gender issues.
Leyli Gafarova Culture of silence multichannel video
Leyli Gafarova is a filmmaker and an active member of the cultural scene of Baku, where she co-founded Salaam Cinema, a platform for the organization of screenings and cinematographic workshops. Gafarova’s works are centred on everyday conflicts, interactions among people and Azeri political and social issues. Shot in Baku, Culture of Silence captures a general feeling of a city which is divided by walls. While creating vivid scenes of life within these visionary urban confines, the artist seems to wonder what the position and the power of the camera are in such conditions.
UNIDEE Residencies Fall Term
Shayma Albess grant by A.M. Qattan Foundation, Palestine September - November 2018
Shayma Nader (1991, Jerusalem) holds a BA in Contemporary Visual Arts from the International Academy of Arts - Palestine (2015), and an MA in Global Creative and Cultural Industries from SOAS – University of London (2017). She was a fellow in the Home Workspace Programme (HWP) at Ashkal Alwan in its 6th round in Beirut. She participated in several exhibitions and residencies including Charita at LE18 (2018), Between Wells at LE18 (2017), HWP Open Studios at Ashkal Alwan (2017), The Local at Darat El-Funun (2015), See You in the Hangue at Stroom Den Haag ( 2014).
Shayma Albess When it enfolds you video
Life is full of noise and death alone is silent. Jacques Attali In the last few years, Shayma Albess has worked on different ways to convey human experience through the instruments of narration and sound. This research has manifested itself in projects suggesting the creation of alternative imaginary realities and stories, modifying the modalities of reception and communication of experiences and collective knowledge. As a consequence,
Albess asks herself how we would imagine a shared future and how we can understand and recreate it also including fragments of collective memory. When It Enfolds Us explores the experiencing of sounds that signal the beginning of an event, and make its context visible. Which sounds are our ears attuned to? To what extent can our listening expand within and without us to save us from complicated situations? Through a series of interviews, Albess analyzes the moments making our listening so attentive that our skin, hair, hands, feet become ears in anticipation. From alarms to earthquakes, sounds can force our listening to move in preparation for a dangerous situation.
UNIDEE Residencies Fall Term
Manjot Kaur grant by Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation, India September - November 2018
Manjot Kaur (1989, India) is a multidisciplinary artist, making Artist Books’, Video, Sound, Installation, and Performance, inquiring the anthropological concerns of environment, identity, and existence. She is the recipient of Professional Annual Award, Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi, 2018; 30 Under 30 Award, Hindustan Times Youth Forum, 2017; Sohan Qadri Fellowship, 2017; Professional and Student Annual Award, 2017 and 2012, Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi. She has been artist in residence at Khoj International Artists’ Association – Peers18, New Delhi; Mythos – Land Art Biel/Bienne, Switzerland 2017; Gram Art Project - funded by FICA, India 2016; Harmony Art Foundation, Mumbai, India 2015; Global Nomadic Art Project, India 2015; and Tellusart, Sweden 2009. She has participated in Water – A video exhibition, Geumgang Nature Art Biennale, South Korea 2016; CairotronicaInternational Symposium of Electronic and New Media arts, Cairo, Egypt, 2016; 28th National Exhibition of Contemporary Art, SCZCC, Nagpur, India 2015 and United art Fair, New Delhi, India 2012. She lives and works in Chandigarh, India.
Manjot Kaur It’s happening, while rotating and revolving… installation
Manjot Kaur’s practice inquires the anthropological concerns of environment, identity and existence. The basis of her art practice is to understand the everevolving nature of life around us. Her work is an interface between science, nature, perception, and scale, inciting a discourse on the social, cultural and personal issues, through the careful representation of objects and narratives rooted in temporal, ephemeral, and entropy. For her multimedia installation It’s happening, while rotating and revolving… the artist explores what is usually perceived as opposites: nature and culture. The work is an
interface between an installation, video, and sound; visualizing the microscopic images of flora and fauna, which are the living fabric of existence; dancing on the rhythm of the sirens of Acqua Alta in Venetian lagoon. The images become the representative of life, humanity, nature, culture, death, calamity and universality of human existence. How does a siren affect human psychology? What feeling does it evoke? Does it propose a state of catastrophe and emergency? The installation is about overflowing water on the floor, mirroring the situation of flood; on which the video projected is reflected. The sound of water from the river outside fills in the gap of silence in the sound of sirens, establishing a connection with direct reality.
UNIDEE Organisations Spring Term
Workshop of demopractic mapping with Alghero’s embassy in collaboration with Alghero’s Third Paradise embassy (Sardinia, Italy) 13 - 16 May 2018 Contributors: Maria Gabriella Lay, Paolo Naldini, Michele Cerruti But, Juan Sandoval, Egidio Dansero. > Article by Luca Deias, “From Sardinia to Cittadellarte for the first demopractic mapping”, Cittadellarte’s Journal, 21st May 2018 http://journal.cittadellarte.it/ arte-societa/dalla-sardegnacittadellarte-la-mappaturademopratica
From Sardinia to Cittadellarte for the first demopractic mapping A delegation of Sardinian students and researchers, together with Rebirth ambassadress Maria Gabriella Lay, has participated in a workshop of demopractic mapping at Cittadellarte. Between urban planning and the writing of the territory, the group worked on a mapping of the Biellese territory and approached the artistic practice of Cittadellarte and the Third Paradise. A journey to Fondazione Pistoletto at the discovery of demopraxy: the workshop of demopractic mapping was held from Sunday 13th to Wednesday 16th May, with the participation of a delegation from Alghero composed of volunteers, researchers and students from the Deca Master course in Law of DADU – Department of Architecture, Design and Urban Planning, and the Fine Arts Academy “Mario Sironi” in Sassari. The four-day event was the result of a collaboration between Cittadellarte and the referent of the initiative Maria Gabriella Lay, representative of the UN’ International Labour Organization (ILO) and Rebirth/Third Paradise ambassadress, who took part in the activities giving her contribution. The beginning, the visits and the interiorist photography On the Sunday afternoon and Monday morning the delegation was introduced to the Foundation
with a visit to its spaces. After the walk through Pistoletto’s works and the areas housing the activities of Cittadellarte’s operative units, the group initiated their programme with their first activity: “Interiorist Photography”. It is a mental practice which has been organized several times by Cittadellarte (at Oasi Zegna, for example, as mentioned in one of our previous articles) and which allows the participants to turn into photographers investigating and experimenting with themselves, elaborating images that are the result of personal inclinations and experiences. The method consists in the application of an analyticaldescriptive approach through which the “photographers” express their sensibility and psychological introspection skills, feeling themselves in time and space. The participants took a series of shots without concentrating
on the technique, but rather on the relationship between their self and the surrounding space. The Sardinian group therefore showcased micro- and macro-spaces, and moments in Cittadellarte, each giving the photographs their personal stamp. The Rebirth Forums and the demopraxy After the practice of the interiorist photography, which allowed the participants to physically and mentally immerse themselves in the spaces of Cittadellarte, on Monday afternoon Paolo Naldini, director of Cittadellarte, presented to the group the peculiarities of the Third Paradise and the demopraxy. The director explained how the morning activity was a way to start expressing the relationship between one’s self and the context, a sort of prelude to the subsequent mapping exercise. He then focused on demopraxy and the demopractic mapping, illustrating the way it works and how it was born. In this context, Naldini also introduced the two main points of reference for the demopractic mapping: the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals and the project “Geographies of Transformation”, two key elements on which the mapping oper-actions to be activated are centred. The group then took the necessary steps to prepare a Forum, the first being the forming
of a team of mappers who identify subjects and organizations with a responsible social impact, from the service industry to businesses to universities.
The meetings
The mapping and the feedback
On Tuesday, the participants attended a series of meetings throughout the day: one with Michele Cerruti But (from Cittadellarte’s Education Office), who explained the basic elements of urban planning and mapping, eventually focusing on Cittadellarte’s urban research and in particular the Bordeaux Biennale of Urban Art; the other was with Juan Sandoval (in charge of the Art Office), who presented and made the participants play (d)estructura, which is an activity/ project half way between art, play and social research in the context of social cartography, encouraging forms of horizontal sociality in a micro-dimension (please see our previous article for all the details). Juan Sandoval was also the lecturer of the seminar called “Art and the writing of the territory: from the mapping to the visual narrative – experiences and case studies”. Special guest for the evening was Egidio Dansero, a professor from the Department of Cultures, Politics and Society of the University of Turin, who talked about a conceptual investigation of the territory analysing the different ways of considering it in building politics, and, starting from the relationship between human conglomerate and environment (space/nature), gave various definitions of territory also examining the territoriality aspect.
On Wednesday, the closing day of their experience at Cittadellarte, the mapping work was presented by all the volunteers, researchers and students who, divided in four groups, had taken part in the activity exploring Biella’s Riva and Chiavazza neighbourhoods. The first group dealt with the mapping of the Riva neighbourhood. The new mappers investigated the relationship between the neighbourhood and Biella’s city centre, a research carried out without the help of paper or digital maps, but rather only asking passers-by for directions to the set destination. The group arranged on a board (see picture below) a series of images referring to the route walked, documenting through them all the “steps” taken. “We see the territory as if made of layers, - explained the components of the group - that is past, present and future. We think that mapping the present means asking ourselves questions about the future”.
The second group focused their work on the Riva neighbourhood too, but from a different perspective. Theirs turned out to be a green investigation, with a mapping of the green areas, identifying and distinguishing the trees lining the roads. On the map is the route they followed, a representation conceived to produce a strong visual impact (in darker green are the areas with more trees, in lighter green the areas with a reduced number of trees). “We designed an easy-to-read map – they said – recalling the veining of a leaf. Together, we have also edited a video showing 12 types of leaves from as many trees from the areas we visited, creating a particular transposition superimposing them to one another into a single image. This is how our leaf was born, the fruit of the combination of all of them”. The work of both groups clearly shows a coherence between form and content.
The third group, who operated in the Chiavazza neighbourhood, avoided a direct cartographic approach. The team in fact wandered without following a particular route, focusing on the local attractions and structures, and socializing with other pedestrians. They gathered in a video all the images characterizing their itinerary. “We had a pick everywhere, – they explained – also to find places where we could recognize ourselves. We talked to people and perceived the nature of the places we visited”. Their mapping includes a representation of the Third Paradise. Why is that? “We think that Michelangelo Pistoletto’s sign-symbol is perfect to tie together our experiences throughout the days”, they replied.
The fourth group also focused on Chiavazza: “We have highlighted elements relevant to the representation of the area”, they said. Their mapping shows an unscientific experiential trait giving prominence to barriers and gates. “While we were walking – they continued – our passage was often blocked by gates and barriers, which prevent pedestrians from entering and looking at the space beyond. We have also noticed that the walls are not graffitied, and the only artistic and expressive manifestations are on wipe-clean and residual surfaces”. Their mapping includes photographs of the physical barriers and writings encountered along the way.
UNIDEE Organisations Spring Term
YAYA Workshop with A.M. Qattan Foundation (Palestine) within the 2018 Young Artist of the Year Award (YAYA) by A.M. Qattan Foundation 31 May - 11 June 2018
Curator: Emily Jacir Participants: Alaa Abu Asad, Yousef Odeh, Dina Mimi, Walid Al Wawi, Dima Srouji, Leila Abdul Razzaq, Firas Shehadeh, Safa Khatib, Haitham Haddad, Ula Zeitoun. Coordinator: Nisreen Naffa (Head of Arts and Literature Unit – Culture and Arts Programme, A.M. Qattan Foundation)
The Young Artist of the Year Award (YAYA) is a biennial programme organised by the A.M. Qattan Foundation to encourage, support and promote young Palestinian artists. The Award has been named the Hassan Hourani Award in honour of the late Hassan Hourani, a gifted young artist and one of the winners of the first Award in 2000, who died in a tragic drowning accident in 2003. The Young Artist of the Year Award has proven to be one of the most important activities in the visual arts field in Palestine and has made a significant impact on its cultural and artistic scene. Initiated in 2000 under the auspices of the Foundation’s Culture and Arts Programme (CAP), it has been organised on a biennial basis with juries that have included local and international artists and critics such as Kamal Boullata, Rajie Cook, Sacha Craddock, Catherine David, Okwui Enwezor, Jean Fisher, Suad Amiry, Nicola Gray, Samia Halaby, Mona Hatoum, Emily Jacir, Adela Laidi Hanieh, Suliman Mansour, Salwa Mikdadi, Gerardo Mosquera, Michelangelo Pistoletto and many others. A special mentorship programme was set up for the 2018 YAYA participants by curator Emily Jacir, that culminated in a ten-day workshop in Biella, Italy, within the UNIDEE - University of Ideas programme at Cittadellarte in June 2018. Jacir presented her art productions over the past 20 years as well as participation
in international exhibitions and biennales. In the course of the workshop, artists presented the development of their art projects until the current stage, and discussed their projects with their colleagues and with the YAYA 18 curator. Discussions also revolved around arrangements to produce and exhibit their works at YAYA 18. These works had been showcased at the AMQF Gallery in early November 2018. The AMQF and Cittadellarte – Fondazione Pistoletto, Italy, have been partners for some 15 years. The AMQF offers an annual grant to a Palestinian artist to participate in Cittadellarte’s artists’ residency programme UNIDEE – University of Ideas.
UNIDEE Organisations Summer Term
GEM-S 2018 Green Energy Management Summer School: 6th Edition with University of Milano-Bicocca (Italy) first week: 16 - 21 July 2018 in Milan second week: 21 - 28 July 2018 at Cittadellarte - Fondazione Pistoletto, in Biella
Program coordinator: Prof SILVANA STEFANI Scientific committee: Silvana Stefani, University of Milano – Bicocca, Italy; Maurizio Acciarri, University of Milano – Bicocca, Italy; Carlo Lucheroni, University of Camerino, Italy; Meruyert Narenova, University of International Business, Almaty (Kazakhstan); Luis Miguel Varela Cabo, University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain); Tiziano Vargiolu, University of Padova, Italy.
The Green Energy Management community (scientists, students, professionals, believers in a better future) was proud to announce GEM-S 2018, the 6th Edition. GEM-S 2018 provided international students with context-sensitive first-class training in the field of Green Energy Management and renewable resources. In the previous editions, GEM had hosted students from 13 different countries. GEM-S 2018 was hosted by University of Milano-Bicocca in the first week and Fondazione Pistoletto (Biella) in the second week. Renewable energy production as well as water management and recycling in agriculture were discussed in the context of the circular economy, with a particular focus on climate change and environmental issues. An introductory broad overview of the global green energy scenario was followed by the specific experiences from different regions around the world. Elements of Energy Finance, for electricity markets and energy projects, were given. Leading international scientists and industrial and institutional partners were part of the teaching staff, bringing and sharing their field experience. A special corner was dedicated to up-to-date research of young PhD students and Postdocs. GEM-S 2018 provided the ideal space for gathering and sharing common experiences, for a sustainable global future.
CONTENTS COVERED: ⋅ Renewable resources and energy management; ⋅ The circular economy and the global green energy scenario; ⋅ Modeling wind and sun for renewable production; ⋅ Photovoltaic energy; ⋅ Hydroelectricity production; ⋅ Recycling in Agriculture; ⋅ Water management; ⋅ Energy finance; ⋅ Financial products for climate change; ⋅ Experience from companies in the energy sector; ⋅ Sustainability, ethics and rights to common resources.
Participants: Francis Kevin Fotsing Sadeu, Leon Knuth, Emil Perron, Manal Balleith, Sylvester Chikabvumbwa, Matteo Corti, Jorrit de Vries, Anastasiya Laznya, Cosimo Tansini, Meldra Vasarina, Jacopo Arrigoni, Dinara Mussabalina, Sagyngali Seitzhanov.
UNIDEE Organisations Fall Term
One and one makes three project with ArtEZ BEAR, Bachelor of Fine Arts in collaboration with ArtEZ University (The Netherlands) 12 - 21 September 2018 Teachers: Cittadellarte - Fondazione Pistoletto, Alexander Römer - Constructlab, Gayle Chong Kwan. Contributors: Michelangelo Pistoletto, Matteo Lucchetti, Paolo Naldini, Valerio del Baglivo, Valeria Cantoni Mamiani, Emanuele Bottigella, Olga Pirazzi, Armona Pistoletto. Coordinators: Juan Esteban Sandoval, Michele Cerruti But.
«One and one makes three» is a caption by Michelangelo Pistoletto, who summarizes in this sentence his whole work. This is also a sentence pretty close to what the project is about, that is SOCIALLY ENGAGED ART. Within the framework of BEAR, UNIDEE proposed a six-week project for Fine Art students about Socially Engaged Art. The project aimed at inviting students to deal not only with the artist’s personal research but also with society and its issues, following the path of Arte Povera and Michelangelo Pistoletto, and experiencing Cittadellarte lively activity. While working within societies, communities and organizations, artists become aware of their role and can re-define their research engaging their efforts and skills. «One and one makes three» aimed at analysing in depth questions like: how has the role of the artists in society developed from the ‘60s to today? what are the roles of the individuals and of the organizations? what is their mutual influence? The project started with a 10day immersive experience in Cittadellarte, where it is possible to learn the fundamentals of Arte Povera, Socially Engaged Art and Mapping. After moving to Presikhaaf, a neighbourhood of the city of Arnhem, the project gave the students the possibility to engage
their own research with a specific territorial and social situation. Starting from their research, they were pushed to develop a proposal for a practice able to activate social transformations, in reaction to the narrative “One and one makes three”: how to negotiate your own individual singularity with the collective. The students developed individual and/or collective site-specific proposals and projects. A final public exhibition in Arnhem showed results and documentation.
Participants: Laila Ali Saber Rodriguez, Romy Berends, Poeka Pipilotti Boland, Lynn Broertjes, Willem Bruinsma, Elsa Hanneke de Jong, Aydee Derix, Joëlle Jochems , Gideon Kramer, Ida Leijting, Ioanna Mitza, JungMin Park, Eleonore Antoinette Pilzecker, Lynn Salentijn, Arthuriwna Victoria Schaminée, Puk Hanne Terstal, Mirte van den Bos, Demi van Doorn, Stijn Jan Mathieu van Hapert, Jelle van Kuilenburg, Solanyi van Solingen, Emiel Vanhove.
About Cittadellarte Fondazione Pistoletto Cittadellarte’s aim is to inspire and produce a responsible change in society through ideas and creative projects. Cittadellarte - Fondazione Pistoletto was instituted in 1998 as a concrete action of the Progetto Arte Manifesto, where Michelangelo Pistoletto proposed a new role for the artist: that of placing art in direct interaction with all the areas of human activity which form society. Cittadellarte is dedicated to the study, experimentation and development of practices translating the symbol of the Third Paradise* into realty, implying it into every sector of society. It is a great laboratory, hosting many young artists, which generates unedited processes of development in diverse fields of culture, production, economics and politics. Cittadellarte is a vibrant international network of cultural and social innovators, individuals actively interlaced with their social contexts where they often act as catalyst of change. The interrelationship between people and projects is based on a common vision whose roots lie in an accumulative thought&practice process, developed by a wide range of thinkers, managers, innovators of all field. Pistoletto’s work, from the 60s to today, acts as a pumping brain for Cittadellarte’s communities. Cittadellarte has developed an extensive networks of collaborations with Institutions (various United Nations Agencies, Ministries, Universities and Educational Organizations) global enterprises and local businesses, civil society collectives, organizations and individuals from all fields.
* “The symbol of the Third Paradise, a reconfiguration of the mathematical infinity sign, is made of three consecutive circles. The two external circles represent all the diversities and antinomies, among which nature and artifice. The central one is given by the compenetration of the opposite circles and represents the generative womb of a new humanity”. Michelangelo Pistoletto www.cittadellarte.it www.terzoparadiso.org
About UNIDEE University of Ideas UNIDEE - University of Ideas is a higher educational programme based on a weekly modular format investigating the relationship among visual arts, public sphere and activism by combining critical theory with practice. Through residential dynamics, UNIDEE is designed to form artivators, people who intend to use art as a methodology, practice and language, in order to become agents for the activation of responsible actions and processes in the territories in which they live and carry out their professional activities. During 2018, UNIDEE has developed three formats: UNIDEE Modules, UNIDEE Residencies and UNIDEE Organisations.
UNIDEE - University of Ideas 2018 Director Juan Sandoval Visiting Curator (Fall Term) Valerio Del Baglivo Under the supervision of Paolo Naldini Programme Coordinator Clara Tosetti Programme Assistant Annalisa Zegna
@unideeuniversityofideas unidee_universityofideas @unidee_universityofideas @_unidee unideevideo
www.cittadellarte.it/unidee/
VALERIO DEL BAGLIVO Valerio Del Baglivo is a freelance curator, educator and perennial collaborator based in Italy. Collaborative research, alternative education, fiction and storytelling play a continuing and vital role within the methodology and interests of Valerio Del Baglivo. He attended Curatorlab, an independent curatorial course, at Konstfack University (2011), and is now completing a PhD Programme at Middlesex University with a research focused on public engagement and experimental pedagogy in self-initiated art institutions. He has integrated his academic training by participating in international residency programs at The Banff Centre in Banff, ICC at Gwangju Biennale in South Korea, Wysing Art Centre in Cambridge, Futura in Prague, The Luminary in Missouri and BAR Projects in Barcelona. In the last years he has curated exhibitions and projects for organizations such as, Apexart - NY, Kunstverein – Milan,Konsthall C Stockholm, Kunsthalle WUK- Vienna, Azkuna Zentroa - Bilbao – and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo - Turin. In 2017 he initiated with artist Ludovica Carbotta The Institute of Things to Come, an itinerant institute that embrace irrational, mimetic and fictional knowledge with the aim of destabilizing models of objective scientific research.
He was 2017 Curator in Residency and Shadow Curator at Grand Union, Birmingham. Since 2013 is a member of IKT – International Association of Curators of Contemporary Arts. He is currently Associate External Curator at MAXXI (Rome) and 2018-19 Visiting Curator of UNIDEE at Fondazione Pistoletto (Biella).
JUAN ESTEBAN SANDOVAL
PAOLO NALDINI
Juan Esteban Sandoval (1972), Head of projects and Director of Cittadellarte’s Art Office.
Paolo Naldini is the Director of Cittadellarte since 2000. In 1996 he gained a degree in Economics from Turin University with a dissertation on urban derelict buildings and lands, in connection with the Faculty of Architecture. From ’94 to ’97, he worked as an account manager at F.&T. Srl Consulting in Turin, then moved to England’s West Country; from ’97 to 2000, he worked for Westland Helicopters Ltd, Yeovil, in the finance department, as Accounts Officer and Trend Analysis Researcher.
As artist, he has exhibited internationally since 1994. He is the co-founder of “el puente_lab” art collective in Medellín, a platform for artistic and cultural production which uses contemporary art as a tool for the social trasformation. Since 2002 he has been the director of the Art Office of Cittadellarte, coordinating the realization of 13 editions of “Arte al Centro” exhibitions within the Foundation’s premises and a number of exhibitions in other locations, among others, the MuKHA in Antwerp, the Island of San Servolo for the 50th Venice Biennial, Modena’s Galleria Civica and the MAXXI Museum in Rome. He co-curated the exhibition “Cittadellarte. Sharing transformation” at Kunsthaus in Graz, the first two editions of the seminar “Methods. Research project on art-society relation” and two workshops of shared interdisciplinary planning in Venice and in Gorizia, Italy. Juan is a former UNIDEE resident (2000).
Paolo writes texts and often talks at conferences on Art and Society. His aptitude for words has recently brought him to create the word demopraxy, “a tension toward a new and pulsating declination of the concept of democracy along the lines of concrete experimentation, of direct and working commitment, open and ongoing involvement” or, to say it more plainly, democracy in first person, which refers to all those practices and methods that focus primarily not on the power of the people, but rather on what people do in and of the public space, the things they create in practice as urgent and de-ideologised responses to expropriation in all fields of life. He founded a web project dedicated to exploring creative collaboration by meeting and writing in different places in the city of Turin.
CLARA TOSETTI Clara Tosetti (1989), Programme Coordinator, UNIDEE - University of Ideas. A graduate in Architecture (Polytechnic of Milan, 2014), in 2016 she obtained a Master in Economics and Management of Art and Cultural Heritage at the Business School of the Sole 24 Ore, specializing in the areas of communication, organization of exhibitions and cultural events and educational programmes. During the master’s degree studies, she co-curated the exhibition “Legàmi” at the Carcano Theatre in Milan, which explored the different types of bonds between women. She then worked for the Studio Art&Co. in Turin, collaborating in organizing the exhibition “Sigmar Polke” at Palazzo Grassi in Venice and assisting prestigious private collections of contemporary art with the advisoring and cataloguing. Clara has always been interested in the connection between art and public space, and how this might relate to the individual and collective growth to create the identity of a community that is both local and global.
ANNALISA ZEGNA Annalisa Zegna (1990), Assistant Director and Curator, UNIDEE University of Ideas. She graduated in Painting at the Accademia Albertina of Fine Arts in Turin and in Visual Arts at IUAV University in Venice. In her bachelor dissertation, she examined the atlas of images as modus operandi in contemporary art, focusing on re-mediation and elaboration of knowledge through images from both paper and digital archives. Her artistic practice focuses on social and collective imaginary through site specific projects related to the place where she is living (Biella, Turin, Venice, Berlin), each time articulated around local issues of public space. In 2015, she was in residence at the Atelier of Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa in Venice, and she participated in exhibitions and competitions in the Venice area. In 2016, she spent a period of research in Cyprus, at the VSMS Lab (Visual Sociology and Museum Studies Laboratory) of the University of Technology in Limassol, in partnership with Artos Foundation in Nicosia, where she investigated some contemporary artistic experiences related to living systems and nonhuman subjectivities. She worked as an assistant curator for Art Laboratory Berlin, dealing with interdisciplinary projects between art, science and technology, with a
particular attention to collective and laboratory experiments. Annalisa is part of the association “BetterPlaces�, with which she collaborates about cultural activities in Biella, promoting horizontal and participatory practices and research processes.
UNIDEE - University of Ideas 2018 is made possible thanks to the collaboration and support of: Patrons
Piedmont Region; Compagnia di San Paolo; Creative Europe programme of the EU; CRT Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Torino; Fondazione Zegna; illycaffè S.p.A.
Production Residency Collaborations & Scholarships A.M. Qattan Foundation (PS); Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation (IN); Fundación Museos de la Ciudad (EC), CAC - Centro de Arte Contemporaneo Quito (EC), Cultural Office of IILA - Istituto Italo-Latino Americano (IT); Yarat Contemporary Art Space (AZ).
Institutional Collaborations & Scholarships
Fine Art (BEAR) - ArtEZ University of the Arts (NL); Università degli Studi di MilanoBicocca (IT); ZKM Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe (D); kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Rīga (LV); Jyvaskylan Yliopisto, Jyväskylä (FIN); Austrian Culture Forum Moscow (RUS); École supérieure d’art et design – ESAD, Grenoble (FR); Università IUAV, Venice (IT); Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, Milan (IT); Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma (IT); IULMIstituto Universitario di Lingue Moderne, Milan (IT); Center for Fine Arts (Bozar), Brussels (B); Galeria Sztuki Wspolczesnej Bunkier Sztuki, Krakòw (PL); HYDRO, Biella (IT).