MontesantoArte residency: Francesca Borrelli, Mariangela Bruno, Elena Mazzi, Valentina Miorandi (Drifters)

MontesantoArte is a residency program promoted by Fondazione Donnaregina per le arti contemporanee / Madre Museum, in collaboration with Quartiere Intelligente (Q.I.), urban regeneration project founded in 2013 in the historical center of Naples, realized in the context of SIAE “Sillumina - Copia privata per i giovani, per la cultura”.

Curated by Adriana Rispoli, the six months residency program involving four young Italian artists aimed at promoting the most experimental contemporary art on regional territory. The artists have been invited to focus their works on the relationship between nature and culture by using cross languages between visual arts, architecture, design and self-construction. The goal is to create a bridge between disciplines by reaching the community and to produce exportable arts applicable in other contexts.

Artists and works:

Mariangela Bruno
Architect Bruno developed her work with natural materials associated to bio-architectures and experiments processes of low re-activation of abandoned urban spaces. She collaborates with landscape philosopher Gilles Clement since 2013. Bruno realized the site-specific self-made installation The Dot, a “light sign” positioned on the roof of the Q.I., recalling the local tradition of the “luminarie” (light shows) with a contemporary twist on the ancient artisanal technique. From an alternative teaching point of view, Bruno’s creative process involved students from the Academy of Fine Art and from the University Federico II of Naples and most importantly the neighbourhood of Montesanto on a daily basis.

Francesca Borrelli
Architect and landscaper Borrelli, who collaborates with the collective Coloco of Paris, is interested in marginal spaces where spontaneous landscapes arise. Her work, Fern’s Bookcase is a site-specific installation that mixes the world of nature and culture in a simple yet strong object: a bookcase, the utmost space dedicated to culture, in which books are substituted with ferns chosen as a symbol of resistance. Meanwhile the accurate selection of titles that can be found in a library translates into the different ferns species that, by releasing spores in the air, become a metaphor of the continuous cycle of life and knowledge. Fern’s Bookcase, achieved through a self-construction process that can be repeated and readapted to any space thanks to it’s modular nature.

Elena Mazzi
Graduated in Visual Arts at IUAV in Venice, Mazzi creates pieces that are deeply tied to her living environment, engaging local communities therefore leading social and cultural contamination processes through a participated form of work. Exploring collaborative practices, in the project Speech Karaoke. A che serve parlà si nisciuno te dà aurienzia? she moves from the homonymous work by finnish and german artists, a multicultural project in constant expansion, that can be shared and reshaped. Through direct interaction with the inhabitants of the territory, the artist collected different kinds of material including political speeches, film fragments, local collective stories, that will all result in a live performance on the day of the public opening.

Valentina Miorandi
Fellow at MA in Filmmaking at the NY Film Academy, Miorandi is a multi-media artist specialized in participatory projects involving communities in order to create new forms of art based on the common good. In 2014 she founded with Sandrine Nicoletta the DRIFTERS project. Drifters developed the video sequel Conkè, accomplished with the direct participation of the residents of the neighbourhood. The video, screened en plein air, is a personal interpretation of local life, in which the daily habits, from folkloristic games to different types of craftsmanship, are re-interpreted in a futuristic manner. Traditionally in Naples sacred and profane, the above and the beneath, intertwine in a single relentless stream of life, and in this tragicomedy the artist, like an alien in the form of her avatar, becomes mentor of the flow of time. By combining different esthetical registers through the use of digital technologies and 3D, Conkè extends beyond local boundaries, potentially becoming an open format that is applicable to endless different contexts.

Contact: T +390810661371, T +393334321719, quartiereintelligente [​at​] gmail.com, comunicazione [​at​] madrenapoli.it

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