Supercondominio 3 / Odorate Ginestre (Perfumed needle furze). A gathering of new contemporary art spaces in Italy

Saturday July 17, 2021
3.45 – 6 pm / 6.30 – 9 pm Performative keynotes open to the public, Castello di Rivoli Theater
9 – 11 pm Closed-door assembly, Manica Lunga
00.00 – 8 am Participant sleep and dream
8 – 9 am Conclusions

Participants:

Supercondominio 3 is curated by Giulia Colletti, Treti Galaxie (Matteo Mottin & Ramona Ponzini) and Laura Lecce.

Following the isolating experience of the lockdown, Supercondominio – standing for a residential unit where several buildings have a few assets in common – becomes an image for an ecology of coexistence, based on physical interpersonal relationships and on in-depth knowledge sharing.
Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea has invited some of the most influential young Italian art spaces devoted to artistic production to the third edition of Supercondominio. Entitled Odorate Ginestre (Perfumed needle furze), in homage to the poet Giacomo Leopardi (Recanati, 1798 – Naples, 1837), who composed La Ginestra (The needle furze) in 1836. It is a weekend of art and reflection on interspecies habitats where animal, vegetal, fungal, human, and even artificial intelligences merge together.
Supercondominio 3 takes its cue from a proposition drafted by curators Giulia Colletti, Treti Galaxie (Matteo Mottin & Ramona Ponzini) and Laura Lecce:
“The secret intoxication caused by the sublime category of catastrophe, the obsession and perversion of ecological thinking, the escapism to other planets, and the constant desire for purification of places and living bodies, are inextricably intertwined in our time, affected as it is by climate change that is not only altering the physical environment where we live, but also has consequences on our mind, causing an unexpected sense of nostalgia for the places where we lived yet we perceive changed today. How can we embrace a different awareness of the environment? Can the behavior of Leopardi’s needle furze provide us with new perspectives on a rapidly changing future? How can we realign our temporality by riding the germ’s decay – as so vividly described by the poet Wole Soyinka (Abeokuta, Nigeria, 1934)? Finally, is it possible to learn how to look at the sky with the same intensity with which a plant eats light, as the poet Mariangela Gualtieri (Cesena, 1951) suggests?”

The event will take place on Saturday July 17 and Sunday July 18 morning, 2021.

Undertaking a two-day-long collective investigation, Supercondominio 3 invites the participating art spaces to immerse themselves in a retreat on the moraine hill of Rivoli in the Susa Valley, in Piedmont. An exercise that recalls the Japanese practice of bathing in the woods. As Walt Whitman (West Hills, 1819 – Camden, 1892) suggests: bending down and linger to observe a blade of summer grass.

In the afternoon, participants will share their research in the Theater of the Museum with the public.

As for the previous two editions – when Combo supported the initiative, participants will sleep in tents. This year, tents will be offered by Ferrino and C. S.p.A., set up in the Manica Lunga gardens. Founded in Turin in 1870, Ferrino has specialized in the production of equipment (tents, backpacks, sleeping bags) and technical clothing for over 150 years alongside lovers of the outdoors. Sleeping under the stars will also be a chance to pay homage to artist Susan Hiller (Tallahassee, 1940 – London, 2019). Participants will re-activate the Dream Mapping experiment, which Hiller carried out in the Hampshire region back in 1973. Each participant will write down their dreams in a notebook on the morning of July 18, sharing their personal experience. The results of this reflection and the documentation of the event will be collected by the CRRI Research Institute of the Museum.

Biographies

ADA (Rome, 2017) www.ada-project.it
ADA is a contemporary art gallery founded by Carla Chiarchiaro in Rome back in 2017. Its program is dedicated to the promotion of young artists, particularly Italian ones. The identity of ADA stems from reflections related to the role of art and artistic practice in the contemporary world and its activity of enhancement and support to young art, aims to share a path of growth and research with artists represented and with their audience. In 2020, the represented artists Benni Bosetto and Diego Gualandris were selected for the 17th edition of Quadriennale di Roma – FUORI.

Almanac (Turin / London, 2013) www.almanacprojects.com
Almanac is a nonprofit space founded in 2013 with venues in London and Turin. Investigating the potential of cultural change through creative collaborations, Almanac works with the aim of activating a dialogue by directing the understanding of recent artistic research towards new registers of thought. In 2014, Almanac Inn opens in Turin a platform with a program of residences, solo exhibitions, a public program of events, and the production of publications with the aim of supporting the work of the young artists invited and offering the public a knowledge of their practices.

Altalena (Milan, 2017) www.altalena.cc
Altalena is a research project active founded in 2017, which organizes interdisciplinary activities with the aim of promoting and sharing while fostering exchanges among the participants (artists, curators, writers, historians). Since its foundation, Altalena has overcome the exhibition format in favor of shared spaces where intertwining different practices, producing speculative imaginaries, and preferring communitarianism. Altalena has organized two residencies, a reading group and has published three artist’s books. In 2019, it was featured in Teatrum Botanicum at the PAV, Turin, and was selected for School of Waters – MEDITERRANEA 19, Biennial of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean, San Marino, with the performance Manuport.

BASTIONE (Turin, 2017) instagram.com/associazione_bastione/
BASTIONE is a cultural association founded by 14 artists in Turin. It was born in 2017 as a collective within the spaces of the Bastione San Maurizio. In January 2021, the association moved its headquarters to Villa Rey, Turin. The group’s work mainly revolves around the contamination of identities, working on the reactivation of spaces through actions of care and symbiosis.

BRACE BRACE (Milan, 2019) www.bracebrace.space
Founded in 2019 by the visual artists Francesca Finotti, Cecilia Mentasti, and Francesco Paleari, BRACE BRACE is a place for meetings, sharing, and research in contemporary art. BRACE BRACE is both an exhibition space and a curatorial project with an artistic direction strongly marked by interdisciplinarity. BRACE BRACE has developed an unprecedented autonomy in the context of cultural spaces in Milan. Elisa Di Nofa (communication and digital strategy), Flavia Albu (curating assistance) and Simone Salvatore Melis (graphic design) actively collaborate on the project.

CASTRO (Rome, 2018) www.castroprojects.it
CASTRO is a space devoted to education and production of contemporary art. Each year, it hosts up to 6 artists and 2 under-40 curators, selected by an international jury. The program includes workshops, round tables, meetings, and seminars on contemporary art dedicated to the public. CASTRO wants to enhance artistic potential of the city of Rome, developing partnerships with craftsmen, professionals, galleries, and institutions in the city. The aim is to activate horizontal learning, a system where the public learns from artists and artists from other artists and from the public.

Clima (Milan, 2016) www.climagallery.com
Clima is a contemporary art gallery founded by Francesco Lecci in Milan, in 2015. It supports and represents young artists including Valerio Nicolai, Lisa Dalfino & Sacha Kanah, Andrew Ross, Jason Gomez, Matteo Nasini. The headquarters in Milan is situated in the contemporary art district of Porta Venezia, in an apartment allowing artists to deeply connect with the historical areas of the city. Clima also organizes off-site projects with different artists. In 2020, represented artist Valerio Nicolai was selected for the 17th edition of Quadriennale di Roma – FUORI.

Condylura (Bologna, 2021) www.condylura.com
Condylura is a research platform on contemporary arts based in Bologna, founded by Paolo Gabriotti and Davide Visintainer. It produces a homonymous publishing series, collaborating with artists for monographic publications. The name Condylura pays homage to a mole, with a star-shaped nose and unique sensitive abilities.

Cripta747 (Turin, 2008) www.cripta747.it
CRIPTA747 is a nonprofit organization founded in Turin in 2008. It is a place of research, exchange, and production. Through exhibitions, screenings, and events, CRIPTA747 investigates new forms and languages offering the public an authentic and unprecedented perspective on the arts. Since 2017, it organizes two mobility programs: Fellowship, supporting artists with a research grants and Studio, a shared study program for production.

Gelateria Sogni di Ghiaccio (Bologna, 2016) www.gelateriasognidighiaccio.com
Gelateria Sogni di Ghiaccio is an artist-run-space founded and coordinated by the artists Filippo Marzocchi and Mattia Pajè. The aim is to broaden individual artistic practices while offering artistic direction and production of events. The space is both a studio and an exhibition venue. Marzocchi and Pajè have been coordinating the space since October 2016, hosting twenty-one events including solo and group exhibitions, sound and performative programs. Gelateria Sogni di Ghiaccio is a place for experimentation and freedom.

Helicotrema (Venice, 2012) http://helicotrema.blauerhase.com/
Since 2012, Helicotrema has been a nonprofit platform for the dissemination of narrative and multidisciplinary sound works – such as radio plays, audio-documentaries, experimental poems, soundscapes – presented through collective listening sessions.

INCURVA (Favignana, 2016) www.incurva.org
INCURVA is an association founded in 2016, aiming to make Western Sicily a fertile ground for research on contemporary art, reactivating its public spaces, and stimulating dialogue with its local communities through a platform for residences, talks, and exhibitions.

Instudio (2015) www.in-studio.net
Instudio is a platform devoted to material and immaterial, theoretical and practical art in Italy. Conceived as a video archive, Instudio aims to document the often-unknown environments surrounding the artists at work. Using the artists’ words themselves, Instudio translates the private experience of visiting the studios into visual documentation. Founded in 2015 by Davide Daninos and Jacopo Menzani, it is currently coordinated together with Elena D’Angelo. Lately, Instudio has developed international collaborations with Italian artists abroad, including Artuner (London), the Italian Cultural Institute in Tokyo, and the Mudam Luxembourg Museum.

Istituto Sicilia (Catania, 2021)
Istituto Sicilia was founded in 2021 by Claudio Gulli, Pietro Scammacca, Leonardo Caffo and Renato Leotta. It is a plurality of institutes, paradigms, an assembly of thoughts converging in diversity. Sicily is conceived as a floating entity in the Mediterranean. The epistemologies through which the Institute’s research is conceived are those of Sicily itself. A continuous set of layered and complex nature and culture where voices and images, writings and desires generate a space of art and nature intersection. Istituto Sicilia is conceived on three fundamental axes: observation/research, protection/dissemination, growth/technique. Istituto Sicilia is a plural and assemblage territory, a physically widespread project and also a concrete proposal to rethink southern culture.

LocaleDue (Bologna, 2013) www.localedue.it
LocaleDue was born in 2013 in Bologna. It is an observatory of experimental artistic practices, located in the Manifattura delle Arti. It produced over seventy projects with over three hundred artists and curators. Each season the modalities and intentions of the programming are renewed. LocaleDue is managed by the founder Fabio Farnè and by the curator Gabriele Tosi.

Montecristo project (Cagliari, 2016) www.montecristoproject.tumblr.com/
Montecristo is an artistic and curatorial project and an exhibition space on an island off Sardinia. It was founded in 2016 by Enrico Piras (Cagliari 1987) and Alessandro Sau (Cagliari 1981).

MRZB (Turin, 2018) www.mrzb.info/lungosturalazio.html
Lungo Stura Lazio – on the northern outskirts of Turin – is where the MRZB collective has built their studio and exhibition space, inside of a settlement made of illegal shacks and gardens. Conceiving architecture as a process in constant motion, MRZB has created an unstable and changing environment-organism. In September 2020, the collective presented an impromptu program of exhibitions and events, with internal experiments and collaborations with artists, writers, curators and musicians. Each event is accompanied by the creation of a fanzine, expanding and reflecting around specific forms and contexts. MRZB is Andrea Parenti, Désirée Nakouzi De Monte, Filippo Tocchi, and Pietro Cortona.

Museo Burel (Belluno, 2019) www.burel.org
Museo Burel is the Museum of Contemporary Art of Belluno. Since 2019, it has been directed by Daniela Zangrando. Its research focuses on the relationship between territorial communities and contemporary arts, through the analysis of artistic language. Museo Burel has presented artists such as Luca De Leva, Jan Fabre, Francesco Fonassi, Luca Francesconi, Giovanni Giaretta, Sohrab Hura, Ragnar Kjartansson, Diego Marcon, Nathaniel Mellors, Alberto Tadiello, Mungo Thomson; museum curators and directors such as Shumon Basar, Meriem Berrada, Francesco Bonami, Andrea Lissoni, Luca Lo Pinto, András Szántó; other figures include Tracy Chawhan, Marta Collini, Cesare Poppi, Gianni Secco, and Chiara Valerio.

Nationhood (Turin, 2018) www.nationhood.it
Nationhood is a studio founded by Achille Filipponi and Matteo Milaneschi, generating new codes and languages in the field of cultural communication. It focuses on editorial design, collaborating with international brands and cultural institutions, including Fondazione Fiera Milano; Egyptian Museum, Turin; MACBA, Barcelona; Triennale Milano and Chicago Radio Archive. Its activity ranges from the magazines to the creative management of digital projects and curatorship. Nationhood is also active in the field of university research and has received international mentions for the art direction and editorial direction of ‘ARCHIVIO MAGAZINE’.

P.I.A. (Lecce, 2017) www.piastudio.org
P.I.A. is a radical research and production space for visual artists and curators based in Lecce, founded by Jonatah Manno and Valeria Raho. Its main activity is providing access to tools, information, technical, and theoretical knowledge in the disciplines of contemporary arts while promoting opportunities for meetings between students and art professionals in the Mediterranean area.

Progetto (Lecce, 2019) www.progettospace.com
Progetto is a space dedicated to contemporary art curated by artist Jamie Sneider. It welcomes international artists, supporting them through residences and exhibitions, in open dialogue with the Apulian territory and its history.

~salgemma (Lecce, 2020) www.apuliartcontemporary.com/it/salgemmamappa/
Salgemma is a curatorial research and digital publishing project founded by Roberta Mansueto and Rosita Ronzini. Salgemma carries out a process of mapping and rewriting places, with the aim of encouraging mobility and an independent exercise of reflection on a contemporary artistic and cultural geography based in Puglia.

Siliqoon (Milan, 2014) www.siliqoon.com
Siliqoon is an art project and artist-run agency, founded in Milan in 2014. Through various initiatives, including the ‘Labs’ residency program or the ‘Qway’digital editions, they support artists in the conception and production of new works. As an agency they collaborate with a vast network of artists, curators and professionals to provide client-specific communication solutions, and creative projects for brands, cultural institutions or individuals.

Soyuz (Chieti, 2017) www.the-soyuz.org
Soyuz was born in 2017 as an exhibition project in the studio of the artist Rashid Uri. In his four years of activity it has conducted a research program based on a curatorial approach with the aim of producing exhibitions that reflect our time. The space takes its name from the Russian spacecraft with which it metaphorically shares, in addition to the narrow spaces, the prerogative of the name itself “meeting” offering its activity to the territory in which it was born.

Spazio Volta (Bergamo, 2020) www.spaziovolta.com
Founded in 2020 by Edoardo De Cobelli, Spazio Volta is a nonprofit exhibition space dedicated to culture and contemporary art in Bergamo. Overlooking Piazza Mercato delle Scarpe, the space hosts temporary projects and exhibitions in the lower room of the former church of San Rocco. Spazio Volta also includes a reading room that hosts an editorial initiative in collaboration with REPLICA, and an off-site space dedicated to site-specific projects within two wall arches, foundations of the Carmine Monastery in the upper city. The space promotes young Italian and international artists, supporting the creation of new exhibitions and stimulating dialogue with a wider audience, thanks to the visibility offered by the window and its geographical position.

SPETTRO (Brescia, 2018) www.spettro.info
Cultural association, concert hall, club, production studio, center for research in the performing arts, SPETTRO is an adventurous space for experimental culture and contemporary music in Brescia. Since December 2018 it has hosted more than ninety international artists, establishing a strong autonomous network, free from the logic of profit. In addition to live music, SPETTRO produces workshops, meetings and collaborations with other European musical and artistic realities and is the home of a web radio.

~takecare (Bari, 2017) https://takecarecollective.tumblr.com
~takecare is a multidisciplinary research collective, a curatorial project and a periodic fanzine. It was born in 2017 with the self-publishing project, a periodic zine that investigates the writing practice of international artists and curators. Starting from June 2018 ~takecare proposes a series of performative workshops –Writing experiments– dedicated to experimenting with different languages, such as the musical improvisation workshop – conduction method – and the writing + stretching workout. ~takecare leads the reflection on a medical-philosophical-experimental dimension, where the care activity activates processes of de-subjectivization, emancipation and resistance, proposing a research approach that aims at participatory actions in the simultaneous involvement of different disciplinary fields and of the languages of art. The creator and founder of the project is Roberta Mansueto (Bari, 1988), independent curator and art historian.

Toast Project Space (Florence, 2019) https://www.manifatturatabacchi.com/live/toast-project-space-il-nuovo-spazio-darte-indipendente/
Toast Project Space, is a place for reflection on the languages and practices of contemporary times, a place for the exchange of experiences, which bridges a gap between the public and the work of art, through a militancy and constant regeneration of the dialectical exchange between the artist, critics and audiences. It was born in the former porter’s lodge in the Manifattura Tabacchi in Florence, from an idea of the artist Stefano Giuri. The project developed during the course of the Artist Residences promoted by Manifattura Tabacchi.

Tenda Campo Base Ferrino @Va Sentiero Sara Furlanetto

Castello di Rivoli would like to thank

The activities of the CRRI are supported by the Region Piemonte and the Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo

Supercondominio 3 – Odorate Ginestre_ENG