December 9th, 2020, 5 PM - Online

On December 9th, 2020 will take place the third Focus of the Forum of Italian Contemporary Art named Resistances! Notes, thoughts, reflections, experiences and hopes for an alternative process of action and participation able to bring a change in the local social contexts, organized by Giuseppefraugallery/Scuola Civica Arte Contemporanea.

The Focus are in-depth monthly plenary sessions. They address mainly community and territorial criticalities, presenting experiences, initiatives, studies and dedicated projects around them. The sessions have a cross take, throwing bridges among different historical, geographical and social contexts. They are open to the public debate so to collect not only thoughts and impressions, but also concrete proposals. The aim of the Focus is to activate a platform giving room to dimensions of local collectivities in order to face critical issues which are linked to the spheres of public space and geo-politics.

Resistances! aims to connect theories, practices, thoughts and experiences coming from activist contexts, not necessarily belonging to the field of contemporary art, yet involving issues its most socially engaged actors deal with indeed. While avoiding to categorize and define such experiences through either a specialized take nor any linguistic filters, we aim to let them flow through the story-telling approach. We will take a journey along the practices of the making, of the place-living, of the social change through the lens of the struggles for the rights of minorities, of the environment, of diversities and of all those urgent instances requiring ongoing acts of resistance.

Resistances! invites the participants to reflect on some of the following questions and to eventually add further ones:

•    What does it mean to resist today – in action and being?
•    Resistance as critical thought: how to foster it within the communities?
•    Making politics is not enough to resist, but is it possible to resist without making politics?
•    According to the Italian Constitution, Art 1, the right to resist is legitimized by the principle of ‘popular sovereignty’: can then the notion of resistance be institutionalized without being deprived of its strength? Is it to be considered as a moment of opposition to the established power or rather as a constructive and transformative action?
•    In the light of the pandemic, how can arts and culture contribute to deal with social, economic and environmental emergencies?

Links:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1120387235044292

https://forumartecontemporanea.wordpress.com/category/focus-resistenze/

La Scuola Civica d’Arte Contemporanea (The Civic School of Contemporary Art) is founded by the collective Giuseppefraugallery. Fully free, it doesn’t receive any public funds, it takes care of research and education, organizes meetings with the local community, creates projects of Public and Social Art and hosts residencies of some of the main contemporary artists, contributing to redesign the future of the local territory.

Tullio Tidu / Scuola Civica Arte Contemporanea has a degree in Contemporary Art History about Maria Lai, he collaborates since 2015 with the collective Giuseppefraugallery. He teaches History of Contemporaray Art at the Civic School of Contemporaray Art (Scuola Civica Arte Contemporanea) and is editor of the magazine RD – acronymous of Educational Resources of Contemporary Art. He took part to various projects of the Civic School, among which Civica 2016 a Iglesias (SU); Pubblica 2017 a Iglesias (SU), Pubblica 2018 - 2019 a Quartu Sant’Elena (Ca).

A Cielo Aperto is a project of art in the public space, curated by Bianco-Valente and Pasquale Campanella, born in 2008 within the organization Associazione culturale Vincenzo De Luca in Latronico, based on the idea of both working at the construction of a plein air museum, where many permanent artworks are in dialogue with the mountain environment, and act in the urban space through project-based and participative approach.

Marco Baravalle is a member of S.a.L.E. Docks, a collective and an independent space for visual arts, activism, and experimental theater located in a former salt storage facility in Dorsoduro, Venice. Founded in 2007, its programming includes activist groups meetings, formal exhibitions, screenings, and actions. In addition of managing the diverse programming at S.a.L.E. Docks, Baravalle is currently a research fellow at INCOMMON (IUAV University of Venice). His fields of research include the relationship between art, theatre and activism, creative labor, gentrification, and the positioning of art within neoliberal economics.

Borgata Paraloup is a small mountain village at 1360 m height in Rittana. The site is made of 7 lodges: one for hosting, one called ‘Museum of story-telling’ (for temporary shows and workshop on women memory), one polyfunctional space, two restaurants and one theatre open air. The Foundation Nuto Revelli Onlus and the Rifugio Paraloup Impresa Sociale manage the cultural center, taking care of the public program, cultural offer and management of the village.

Leonardo Caffo is co-curator at The Triennale of Milan. He founded Waiting Posthuman Studio, a group of research in between philosophy, architecture and art. Since 2017 he teaches at Naba Academy in Milan and Holden School in Torino. He writes for La Lettura at Corriere della sera and he is co-director of Anonimot. In 2015 he won the Frascati Philosophy National Prize. Among his books A come Animale: voci per un bestiario dei sentimenti (Bompiani 2015), La vita di ogni giorno (Einaudi 2016), Fragile umanità. Il postumano contemporaneo (Einaudi 2017) e Vegan, un manifesto filosofico (Einaudi 2018).

Micaela Casalboni is actrice, teacher, responsible of international intercultural projects and artistic director of Teatro dell’Argine, a theater company from San Lazzaro which she co-founded in 1994 and which is directing the ITC Theater di San Lazzaro (BO) since 1998. Keywords of her work and TdA: theater as an open space, theater as dialogue and relationship between generations, cultures, genders, disciplines and fields.

CHEAP is a Public Art project founded by six women in 2013. It is a project, a collective, a non-objective perspective, an organization: the material it chose to investigate is the paper – it didn’t find anything more ephemeral. CHEAP creates mainly interventions in the urban landscape, it is engaged in contemporary languages and in the search for an equilibrium between curatorial practice and activism.

The Committee of Reconversion of RWM is made of more than 20 local, national and international groups, which aim to promote civil reconversion of all the jobs at RWM factory in Iglesias and Domusnovas (Sardinia): a German military factory producing explosives sold to Saudi Arabia and used in Yemen. 

The curatorial work of Ilaria Conti focusses on artistic practices rooted in sociopolitical and decolonial research and involving the public, artists, activists and researchers on the development of relational processes. Ilaria was Research Curator at Centre Pompidou, where she worked for Cosmopolis, a platform dedicated to research-based artistic practices, Exhibitions and Programs Director at CIMA New York, Assistant C at the Marrakech Biennale 2016 and Samuel H. Kress Interpretive Fellow at Metropolitan Museum of Art. Among her projects: Prove di R(i)esistenza (2020), ALT(ering) + SHIFT(ing) + COMM(uning) (2020), Labor/Art/Auratic Conditions (2020), Cosmopolis #2: Rethinking the Human (2019), Cosmopolis #1.5: Enlarged Intelligence (2018), Cosmopolis #1: Collective Intelligence (2017), 6th Marrakech Biennale: Not New Now (2016).

Luigi Coppola is an artist, activist and promoter of participative and public space projects. His practice is based on an innovative relationship with the commons through actions able to activate the potential and collective imageries, starting from the analysis of specific cultural, political and social contexts. Individuating and sharing the commons of a given group or community, activates relational dynamics as well as processes of emancipation and re-imagination of the present. He is co-founder of the movement of Casa delle Agriculture in Castiglione d'Otranto (Lecce).

Daìmon: A scuola per restare (at school to stay): a school which will never end: itinerant, multidisciplinary, inclusive, free and accessible to kids and big ones; with no doors nor windows, nor reports or certificates, nor homeworks or deadlines; with learning places in the fields, wine cellars, artisan shops, spread all over Italy’s villages and landscapes. A school able to those who will want to live poetically and civically their own territories and give value to their place-living.

Exctinction Rebellion (XR) is a non-violent movement which uses civic disobedience to push the governments to stop the destruction of ecosystems and minimize the risk of social collapse due to the climate crisis.

Italia che Cambia (Italy that changes) is a project aiming to narrate, map and network that part of the country which believes in communitarian activism. It is made of a newspaper and an ngo, it aims to offer facilitating tools towards processes of constructive transformation which are going on in Italy. Its goal is to foster the potential of all those who aim for a change, showing models and ‘know-how’ as well as the network support.

Free Home University (Lecce) is a pedagogical and artistic experiment focused on generating new ways of sharing and creating knowledge by experiencing life in common. The name shows our desire to be a non-vertical, energy-liberating, insurgent environment (Free), within a protected and intimate space (Home), committed to creating a temporary autonomous community of learners (University).

Gianni Fresu is PhD researcher in Philosophy, University Carlo Bò of Urbino, Professor of Political Philosophy at Universidade Federal de Uberlândia-Instituto de Filosofia (MG/Brasil). Since October 2020 he is researcher in Political Philosophy at the University of Cagliari, Department of Social and Political Science. He is President of the International Gramsci Society do Brasil.

Pietro Gaglianò (1975) is a critic, educator and independent curator, investigating the relationship between the aesthetics of power and the counter-narration which are at stake in art, with a focus on urban and social contexts as stage of the contemporary languages. In his projects he experiments hybrid formats between art and social sciences so to foster the political perception of the public sphere and the community. Among his books are Arte, pedagogia, anarchia (Gli Ori, 2020) e Memento. L’ossessione del Visibile (Postmedia Books, 2016).

Isola Art Center is an open experimental platform for contemporary art. It is based in the Isola neighborhood in Milan and it is fed by energy and solidarity. Facing since more than a decade a urban landscape influenced by global conflicts and transformations, the project is up till now budget-free, precarious and very local. Eluding any hierarchical logics of work, the process of Isola Art Center involves through a rhizomatic take artists, critics, Italian and international curators, artists’ collectives, activists, architects, researchers, students, commoners’ groups and committees.

Laveronica was founded in 2007 by Corrado Gugliotta in Modica, Sicily. Since the very beginning, the gallery worked with artists investigating the human condition both in its public and political dimension and in a more private exploration. At the same time, due to the strong connection with its local context, it is since always engaged in participative projects in the public space, trying to bypass the borders of the art sphere so to dialogue with writers, philosophers, sociologists, musicians, theater companies, activists, schools and ngos.

Associazione Il limone lunare. The organization Il limone lunare creates projects of action-research by developing the mutual maieutics by Danilo Dolci. It holds workshops, educational programs and courses of art, creating connections between knowledge and national and international territories. It aims to spread good social, educational and civic practices.

Deborah Lucchetti, activist and campaigner, former metalworker and trade unionist, is engaged in the fields of work, human rights, globalization. She is President and Coordinator of the Campagna Abiti Puliti, Italian section of the Clean Clothes Campaign, international coalition made of more than 250 organizations, promoting the labor rights in the global fabric industry since 20 years.

Clara Mogno is fellow researcher in Political Philosophy. She is part of the Assemblea Il Mondo che verrà (The Upcoming World), activist of Mediterranea Saving Humans and she is part of the editorial collective of Euronomade.

Bertram Niessen is co-founder of CheFare, following its development since 2012 as Scientific Director and Resposible of Research/ Development. As teacher, author and project designer he is engaged in urban spaces, economies of culture, DIY 2.0 and distributed handcraft, cultures of networking and collaboration, grassroot innovations, digital art. His main interest lies in the intersection between culture, technology and society, as he is convinced of the urgent need of new forms of social and political action.

Ramdom promotes international projects of contemporary art in dialogue with the context of Salento, such as Investigation on Extreme Lands and DEFAULT, through shows, public space installations, residencies, workshops, talks. Lastation was its operational base, located inside the train station of Gagliano-Leuca. Lastation was obliged to close, dismissed by the Public Railway, which at first granted the use of the space and then took it back to its original function. The dismission happened on November, 18, 2020, but the work of Ramdom resists. https://www.ramdom.net/

RAVE is a meta-project created by Isabella and Tiziana Pers in 2011, which sustain a debate on the role of contemporary art towards the animal identity, with a biocentric and anti-specist perspective. The encounters between the process of research and the point of view of the absolute ‘other’ give birth to a plurality of original and experimental visions in a village inhabited by animals which were saved by the slaughter and trees that should have been torn down. Particpant artists: Adrian Paci, Ivan Moudov, Regina José Galindo, Diego Perrone, Tomás Saraceno, Igor Grubić, Nada Prlja, Giuseppe Stampone.

RiMaflow is a cooperative founded by the former workers of Maflow. Historical car company of Milan, which went bankrupt out of speculation, shut down and displaced in Poland in 2012. Following the closure, a group of former labourers decided to occupy the factory so to continue working. As they couldn’t keep going the same activities of before, the factory was converted into a range of different activities. After a long struggle to regulate the new system (thanks to an agreement of the Milan Police with the stakeholders – foundations, ngos, commoners – Rimaflow could move to a more appropriate location for their activities. In the new site it is developing a liquor and food workshop, a ‘quarter of work’ of sort: a warehouse dedicated to artisan work and co-working, with more than 16 workshops and 30 craftsman, free-lancers and artists. The goal of the workers of RiMaflow if to build the conditions of employment for at least 331 people, one more than those who worked at the car factory.

Daniela Spera is specialized in chemistry, pharmacist and journalist. She took part to the trial ‘Sold Out Environment’ against Taranto’s Ilva as technical consultant in 2010-12. She is president of the committee ‘Legamjonici contro l’inquinamento’ which is involved in a number of environmental struggles: Ilva, radioactive waste, dumps, Tempa Rossa petroleum project. Her experience of activism inspired the book ‘Veleno’ by Cristina Zagaria. In 2013 she promoted the first collective appeal against the Italian State at EHCR about Ilva, which they won. Since 2013 Spera also works on awareness projects about environment in the schools. In 2019 she was co-founder of the national network of ‘Mamme da Nord a Sud’ which gathers committees and ngos working on environmental justice and health all around Italy.

The cooperative Valle dei Cavalieri was born in 1991, after the closure of the last remained bar of the village. Not long time before, even the last workshop had shut down. Everybody knows that a village without even a bar nor a workshop left is destined to death. Therefore we, the local inhabitants, got together and we built The Cooperativa Valle dei Cavalieri, named after the area of Succiso.

“The ethics of resistance are measured with the arrival of the ‘others’, with the protection of one’s own place of belonging, with the need of taking care, of being aware and sensitive to our places.” These words and the notion of Restanza (place-living) in itself, are an idea developed by the anthropologist and writer Vito Teti – one of the main researchers on folk traditions from Calabria, and on rites and customs in the traditional and contemporary society.

Villaggio Normann (Gonnesa -SU) is a very small former mining village in the South-Western Sardinia. All the inhabitants formed an association and they do resist by promoting cultural, artistic, conservation and monuments valorization initiatives, as well as of urban studies and regeneration. They also promote community activism in support of the local institutions and most needing population.

Wormkos is a laboratory of visual arts founded by Pasquale Campanella in 1987 at Sesto San Giovanni (Milan). It is an open place which bridges art and psychic diversities without pretending to be ‘saver’. Many projects, artists, disables and not, critics and other people collaborate to the creation of works and texts. Wurmkos chose contemporary art tout court working collectively at redefining public space and social activism. It produces works, learning workshops with schools and museums, theoretical works, publications and support to graduation thesis. In 2011 it becomes an ngo so to preserve the cultural and material patrimony of the group and share it with the collectivity. It took part to many shows in Italy and abroad: http://wurmkos.blogspot.com/

 

 

Focus Forum is supported by Palaexpo.