Group show: (Im)possible Ecologies

From a draft of Andris Brinkmanis and Marco Scotini. Curated by the NABA Visual Arts and Curatorial Studies MA students: Shamooda Amrelia, Elisabetta Calligaro, Antonela Solenicki, Zixin Han, Harshitha Jois, Elena Marcon, Nicolò Martinelli, Rosaria Murolo, Alberto Navilli, Barbara Niniano, Martina Pumpel, Alessia Riva, Federica Rizzo.

Artists: Chiara Antonelli, Roberta Argenta, Davide Barberi, Eleonora Del Bene, Isabel Bergant, Elisabetta Bottura, Francesca Bullo, Alessandro Cavallini, Elisa Ceneri, Michela Fabriani, Diego Giannettoni, Romina Guerrero, Camilla Gurgone, Munisa Kholkhujaeva, Kenny Alexander Laurence, Miranda Lopez Ortega, Giorgio Mattia, Rebecca Momoli, Katia Mosconi, Giuliana Paolino, Tatiana Russi Soto, Lorenzo Silvestri, Alessandro Sorrentino, Shaha Tanvi, Mateusz Dalla Torre, Barbara De Veteris, Iris Volpato, Shaoqi Yin. 
Exhibition Coordinator: Vasco Forconi.

Since many years, the relationship between ecologies, artistic practices and curatorial studies has been one of the central elements of the pedagogic processes developed by NABA’s Visual Arts Department. This plural declination of the ecological paradigm originates with Félix Guattari and his forward-thinking reference to the need for a threefold articulation of ecology as being environmental, social and mental at the same time. Rather than an active work on nature or a theoretical elaboration of the Anthropocene, not always immune to certain seductions of the power, what is at stake today appears to be an ecology of the possible. Namely, the reactivation of the ability to re-enchant and re-imagine the world—in Silvia Federici’s words—which, since the 1990s, seems to have been violently removed from the collective, political horizon and co-opted by the dominion of western technology.

What is the meaning of the possible today? Practicing ecology means, above all, confronting this question, resorting to that which Deleuze and Guattari defined as nomad science. Practicing ecology today, therefore, cannot do without a radical opening towards alternative forms of pedagogy.

The Botanic Garden of Rome, a living museum, a place for the protection of biodiversity but also the symbol of Italy as a nation state with a colonial past, presents itself as the privileged setting in which to address such questions about the horizons of the possible. The exhibited works by the student-artists bring together and alternate a multiplicity of approaches to political ecology. Nomadism, myths and metamorphosis, eco-feminism, colonial memories and a particular call for deceleration are only some of the possible declinations of a plural ecology that increasingly manifests itself by means of a holistic concept of the environment in which all elements, species and forces co-exist in reciprocal interconnection and interdependence.

(Im)possible Ecologies is the first act in an exhibition project that sees the involvement of the students from both NABA campus in Milan and Rome, from the BA in Painting and Visual Arts and from the MA in Visual Arts and Curatorial Studies, the latter active in Milan and proposed as a new programme for Rome campus for A.Y. 2022/23  (currently subject to authorisation by MUR). (Im)possible Ecologies will continue in the autumn with an exhibition in Milan dedicated to the subject of memory and the archive.

Special thanks: Silvia Simoncelli, Caterina Iaquinta, Lorenzo Romito, Ginevra Stuto.
​Graphic identity: Giordano Cruciani.

NABA, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti is an international Academy focusing on arts and design: it is the largest private Academy in Italy, and the first one to have been recognised by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MUR), back in 1981. As a recognised Academy, NABA offers in its two campus in Milan and Rome academic diplomas equivalent to first and second level university degrees in the fields of design, fashion design, graphics and communication, multimedia arts, new technologies, set design, visual arts. NABA was selected by the QS World University Rankings® by Subject Art & Design as the Best Academy of Fine Arts in Italy and among the top 100 universities in the world.