SITE-SPECIFIC ENVIRONMENT INSTALLATIONS. Artists: Sara Antonellis and Nicola Scanagatta. Curator: Simone Cametti.
Enhancing disused historical places in Piazza Armerina through contemporary art: this was the urban regeneration objective of the Sicilian Luci d’Artista event in which RUFA students Sara Antonellis and Nicola Scanagatta participated as part of the BA in Painting.
In addition to the traditional ‘illuminations’ in the Sicilian Baroque streets, this year the municipality will be enriched by installations created and realised by young artists from all over Italy. The urban centre of Piazza Armerina offers a true workshop, a unique experience in which young Italian artists could realise their creative ideas through installations at some of the Baroque locations and works of art by Mitoraj in the city. The project characterises the municipality and the city of Piazza Armerina as a place to welcome young people and their creative ideas. Artists in residence for an encounter between tradition and contemporaneity, in a process of urban regeneration.
THE PROJECT
St. Anne’s Church, St. Clare’s Church, Piazza Duomo and Piazza Garibaldi are the places of the symbolic circuit of spaces and works of art, between Mitoraj and Baroque, in which the creative focuses of the young artists were experimented. RUFA was invited to identify artists, who were offered the possibility of a few days’ artist residency in the city of Piazza Armerina. The artists developed original projects, realised in sharing with local technicians and operators. In this way, a productive logic of artist-technician-operator contamination was updated.
The project was conceived and produced by Roberto Grossi (Cultura e Management), with the Councillor for Culture, in cooperation with the Globart association, coordinated by Clara Ficai Albuquerque and Pietro Rausa. Special thanks for supporting the project go to the Municipality of Piazza Armerina and the Culturama association.
THE ARTWORKS
Portal, Through a Glass Darkly & Liberation come together by including the viewer in an environment that overturns the usual way of experiencing a man-made environment that has fallen into disuse. Ethereal, luminescent figures float in the environment and modulate space. They trace it, directing the viewer’s gaze towards the apse that holds a small x-ray of the environment. The dialogue of these transparent organisms is orchestrated according to values of light and dark maxima. An experience of intimate dialogue with light.
PORTAL,Through a glass darkly – Sara Antonellis, Andrea Ioannilli.
Church of Santa Chiara
Portal, Through a glass darkly is a light installation exhibited in the apse of the church of Santa Chiara, which is configured as a testimony of a collective action of requalification of the environment and as a translation of darkness into light. During the installation of the works, some residents were asked to visit the place in the dark and film the state of degradation of the environment with a night viewer. This movement generated a discourse on human spaces intended for gathering and how they are experienced and restored over time. The work is therefore configured as a transparent screen, similar to an X-ray plate on which the videos recorded by the visitors during the collective action will be broadcast by visitors during the collective action.
RISVEGLIO – Nicola Scanagatta.
Church of St. Anne
This work picks up on the themes dealt with in Mitoraj’s work, which brings the viewer into harmony with ancient culture and marks out the possibilities of new paths towards the future. The subject is the labyrinth of Erice, located in the cave of Polyphemus in Sicily, which is considered the oldest labyrinth in the world. The labyrinth has been reassembled and modified to facilitate the installation, which is placed on the ground in the church of Sant’Anna and, through the use of two strips of white neon LEDs illuminating Mitoraj’s cross bust from below, allows interaction with the viewer, who can walk inside.
WATCH THE VIDEO OF THE LUCI D’ARTISTA PROJECT