Wednesday 2nd February, at 18:00, Circolo dei Lettori di #torino @circolettori.
Presentation of the Tell_US, catalog curated by @francesca__simondi with graphic project by Marilia Nogueira and edited by @boite_editions.
The rich documentation, including texts, images, and graphics, tells and gives new shape to the homonymous project, designed to promote sustainable tourism and enhance the culture of artistic ceramics and craftsmanship at Ecovillaggio Torri Superiore, an ancient medieval village in the Ligurian hinterland, a few kilometers from Ventimiglia. The project is characterized by a transdisciplinary approach, thanks to craftsmanship, architecture, culture, contemporary art, and social dialogue, within a four-phase program. The catalog is a synthesis of four distinct and complementary moments. The redevelopment and renovation of the ceramic workshop, the promotion of sustainable tourism including site-specific artworks, a rich PUBLIC PROGRAM curated by the artist @cosimo_veneziano, and a workshop focused on the practical return of what was learned.
@marguerite_kahrl and @marullo.emanuele were selected from the applicants who applied for the open call. In the spring of 2021, they worked directly on the Ligurian territory, vis-à-vis the local community. Curious to know them better?
curated by Ilaria Bonacossa and Marco Scotini with Anna Lovecchio
Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Villa Croce, in collaboration with PAV – Parco Arte Vivente, Torino
Villa Croce presents Little Malthusian Invasions, a solo show of Marguerite Kahrl that features two bodies of work by the American artist: the ongoing Noble Savages series of drawings, sculptures and videos in addition to a selection of relational objects from Con MOI, a collaborative project developed in the area of the former Olympic village in Turin. For the opening day a performance On nature of matter will take place during which the artist will be constructing a sculpture accompanied by the sound ‘objects’ created by the composer Giuseppe Gavazza.
Marked by a longtime commitment to political activism, the artistic research of Marguerite Kahrl is deeply influenced by the principles of permaculture, a philosophy of land use and design, conceived in the 1970s, which proposes sustainable models of growth based on resilience, complexity, and the self-regulating balance found in natural ecosystems. The ethics of close observation of nature and earth care are embraced by the artist as a radical alternative to the dominant mechanisms of exploitation and consumption that cause waste, excess, and destruction in the contemporary world.
Marguerite Kahrl, ‘NS49B’, (2014), 60 x 46 x 32 cm Hemp, linen, batting, thread, wood and stuffing.Marguerite Kahrl, ‘Malthusian Matter, the ecology of little invasions’, NS31b, (2015) 1’30” directed by: Marguerite Kahrl, music by: Giuseppe Gavazza, video: Marco Mion titles: Seungjun Jeong
The subjects of her video series entitled ‘Malthusian Matter, the ecology of little invasions’ are Kahrl’s Noble Savages, soft busts representing grotesque characters, halfway between tender and monstrous, whose iconography is derived from Los Caprichos by Francisco Goya, the renowned series of etchings published in 1799 as a critique to the decline of reason and the widespread corruption at the end of the Enlightenment. The title makes reference to the expression originally coined by the English poet John Dryden (1631-1700) and made famous by J.J. Rousseau (1712-1778) who idealized the “noble savage” in the state of nature as an innately pure and good human being, uncontaminated by civilization.
Except for the recent bronze casts, Kahrl’s sculptures are made with hemp, linen, and cotton, natural elements that are connected to the history and the environment of the Cavanese area where the artist has been living since 2002. The hemp plant has played a major role in the economic development of the region where it has been cultivated to provide textiles, paper, oil, building materials, and animal feed. The distinctive expressive qualities of the hemp fabrics, raw but also soft to the touch and durable, confer an aura of domesticity and resilience to the hand-sewn puppets, playful hybrid creatures placed on slender pedestals that, as Lucy Lippard observes, “illuminate the eternal contradictions of the human condition.”
The exhibition also includes videos, a timeline and relational objects realized within the Con MOI project, an informal group of migrants and Italian citizens engaged with a range of practices, from sharing time and food to activating forms of reciprocal attention, aimed at forging a supportive community. The group is named after the MOI, the former Mercato Ortofrutticolo all’Ingrosso (wholesale fruit and vegetable market), where the prefabricated structures built for the 2006 Winter Olympics are presently occupied by over a thousand refugees from different geographical origins. Thanks to Kahrl and other participants, the Con MOI group addresses the criticalities of such a context by setting in motion relational strategies that promote food-sharing as well as the transformation from the redistribution of material and cultural resources.
Members of Con MOI create self-portraits by transforming donated fabric into hand-sewn sculptures – Mini MOI.
The conference Care Beyond Crisis addressed coping with crises through care. Care as a way of leading beyond crises by means of coping practices and a transformation approach.
Permaculture Design Course for Syrian Refugee women in Turkey, a project of P4R
Climate change, war, and natural disasters mean that people will be forced to flee from their homes and seek sanctuary more than ever. People, materials, and methods are required to convey the means to manage, scale-up applications, and learn to support vulnerable communities and those living in crowded environments. It is to be expected that Informal settlements will be on the rise.
As a group of experienced practitioners, the collective Permaculture for Refugees (P4R) is united in the belief that permaculture can address the systemic relationship between economic collapse, degraded habitats, loss of the relationship between people, and food security. We became convinced that training refugees in permaculture could offer a springboard to gain confidence and access other long-term social and economic integration opportunities.
The conference focused on just and sustainable farming and food systems in the North of England and Scotland. Run in partnership with @foodfutures and Oxford Real Farming Conference.
Against a background of uncertainty, and possibly cascading disasters, this panel provides a changed perspective for permaculture regenerative practices applicable to a range of variables and contexts. Permaculture is often used in rural settings, which don’t reflect the reality for the majority of the world’s population. This is set against an uncertain and rapidly changing world. Working with refugees, P4R has gained experience in ways of life that are, unfortunately, likely to become common. With mass migration, crowded settlements will become a new norm in urban and rural areas compounded by economic collapse, global warming, and possibly further pandemics. Permaculture has the potential through its relevance to local bioregions and knowledge, and, working through principles to meet their needs. Facing an uncertain future requires people, materials, and methods to convey these to vulnerable communities and those living in crowded environments to the point where they can manage and scale up the learning and applications themselves.
