Public Program
May, June, September, October 2022
Marrying the Night
|| Venice || Palermo ||
A “performative” project by g. olmo stuppia (Milan 1991, lives between Venice and Palermo). The project consists in four outdoor ecowalks, within the context and aesthetics of “provincia diffusa” (a combination of suburbs landscape and small-town mentality) and its outcome, both in the Lagoon and in the Mainland, from Southern to Northern Italy.
Inspired by Tarkovsky’s moods and the collective Stalker, Marry the Night combines the artist’s past life and current artistic research in a visionary work, expressed in four chapters, corresponding to walking and sailing through four areas defined by provincial aesthetics, diving deep into their soul searching for their contradictions.
Fincantieri factory in Palermo; Sacca San Mattia in Venezia, a man-made island and Murano glass factory dump; Brancaccio, post-industrial working-class area in Palermo; and finally Mose, fulcrum of the venetian lagoon’s mechanization; these are the four destinations of Sposare la notte, each marked by provincialism and industrial culture abusing shape and space, but with a revenge in the end: the collision between antique “italic” sensitivity and consumerism.
> Cammino primo: Sacca San Mattia, Murano | Saturday, May 7th, h 7pm-12pm
After a brief drift in Cannaregio, the artist will sail from Venice to Sacca San Mattia, Murano: a man-made island where modernizing impulses failed a long ago and resulted in layering of colored-glass debris and rabbit feces.
The artist will provide everyone with a kit for collecting glass pieces to be catalogued later; some poetic readings will take place in the meantime.
Meeting point 2839 fond. ormesini 30121 venezia (bar da fifo)
Info: +39 3933154973
> Cammino secondo: Palermo | Friday, June 10th, h 5.30pm – 10pm
In Palermo, the participants will walk through Cantiere Navale Fincantieri and visit semi-abandoned spots, guided by workmen from Borgata di Mare Arenella; the area between the harbor and Monte Pellegrino hosted some of the first settlements of the Island, while the actual working-class district (a common scenery in the Southern Italy) resulted from the closure of brick and chemical factories (in the district as well on the entire North Coast of Sicily).
During the walk the artist will offer short readings and explanations as well as an invitation to listen: to the sounds of factory machines, to the not-so-silent Palermitan silence. The visit will end with a fleeting encounter with the worker-daughters of some local families.
Meeting point Via ai Fossi n. 1 cap 90142 Palermo
Info: + 39 3282089171
> Cammino terzo: Brancaccio, Palermo | Friday, September 9th, h 6pm-12pm
Brancaccio-Ciaculli is the densest neighbourhood in Palermo, included in the 2nd municipal district. The vast district, enclosed between the Oreto river and the new ‘Forum’ shopping centre, stretches south-east of the ancient city, incorporating a mixture of elements, ancient and modern, in a conglomerate of urban parts and sheet metal bordering vegetable gardens and apartment blocks. Within the district there is a heritage listed as a Unesco WHL, the Admiral Bridge and the Maredolce Castle, Arab-Norman architecture that stands in a historically interesting landscape. Today, the most important civic figure for the district is that of Father Pino Puglisi, killed by the Mafia in 1993. Compared to the countryside and the city, for the inhabitants of Brancaccio, Ciaculli, Settecannoli and Acqua dei Corsari, the sea is just a backwater. For decades, debris upon debris has been piling up on the coast. The flânerie begins at the eighteenth-century Church of San Ciro (at the foot of Monte Grifone), and then descends towards the South Coast of Palermo – karstic as water – to lap up mysterious places, amidst brutalist terraces and thresholds to be unveiled.
Meeting point
Church of San Ciro
Viadotto Maredolce, 90124 Palermo PA – Here Google Maps
Info
+39 3473759463 +39 3282089171
Produced in collaboration with
Magazzino Brancaccio, Padre Nostro Welcome Centre, University of Palermo DARCH,
Ecomuseo Mare Memoria Viva, Maredolce Castle and Park Association, Via Pecoarino 4 (PA) Hotel San Paolo Palace
> Cammino quarto: from Padiglione Italia to Mose (dall’Arsenale nord) | Saturday, October 8th, h 17.30pm-12pm
The last chapter takes place almost entirely by boat. This walk features the most expensive public work in the world, built by the Consorzio Venezia Nuova and still the subject of enormous controversy: the Mose. The work is part of a long Italian tradition. g. olmo stuppia offers a particular interpretation of it, presenting it as a performance of the unfinished, but also as a form of ‘protection’: a barrier, both physical and mental, against the acceptance of the climatic and hydrological changes that humans have brought upon themselves. The Mose is a much-discussed reality, only partially functioning. With the extraordinary participation of engineer Giovanni Cecconi, former head of the Control Room, the flanerie will join the Celestia area to the North Arsenal on foot and a subsequent detournament by boat. The Venice Lagoon – explored from an engineering point of view – once again narrates the balance between ‘nature’ and ‘culture’ that, since the times of the Serenissima, has kept alive an ancient amphibious society in the heart of Europe.
Meeting Point: Imbarcadero ACTV di Celestia, Venezia Castello
Free booking required: +39 347 375 9463 3347374093
