Elena Mazzi: Atlante Energetico
The Fondazione Spinola Banna per l’Arte and the GAM Galleria Arte Moderna e Contemporanea of Turin announce a three-year collaboration project which, promoted thanks to the contribution of the Compagnia di San Paolo, brings together two cultural excellences of the Piedmont territory: one private and one public institution.
The aim is thereby to re-launch the residency programme dedicated to young artists, a programme promoted over the last ten years by the Fondazione Spinola.
Through a shared project, every year the theme will be proposed by an artist, invited jointly by both institutions, who in the role of tutor will outline a project and a working schedule to be implemented between the following autumn and spring in both venues.
The residential workshop at the Fondazione Spinola Banna will be split up every year into three phases: the first destined to research and analysis into the theme proposed, with the help of experts from around the world; the second aimed at the analysis of the projects developed by the participants, and the last dedicated to the exhibition of the completed works.
For the year 2016/17 the artist/tutor invited is Elena Mazzi, with a project entitled Atlante Energetico.
The Atlante Energetico project unfolds along various paths which continually overlap and dialogue with one another. It takes place in two main venues: the GAM in Turin and the Fondazione Spinola Banna.
The 2017 programme will respect the following schedule:
From 28 March to 1 April 2017, WORKSHOP (Second Stage)
At the Fondazione Spinola
Saturday 17 June 2017
The opening of the final show and the presentation of the publication will follow
Saturday 24 June 2017
Exhibition opening
At the GAM, a series of meetings, conferences and performances dedicated to the theme of the project is foreseen.
Thursday 19 January 6pm
LECTURE PERFORMANCE I
Speaker: Vincenzo Guarnieri
Wednesday 8 February 6pm
LECTURE PERFORMANCE II
Speaker: Alice Benessia
Thursday 30 March 11am
MEETING WITH NAF – NATURE ADDICTS FUND
Thursday 30 March 6pm
APERITIF AND PERFORMANCE WITH LEONE CONTINI AND THE PARTICIPANTS IN THE ‘ATLANTE ENERGETICO’ WORKSHOP
Download the press release with all the event details
The main theme to be investigated is that of energy, which is declined here in various aspects involving the Piedmontese territory, its landscape and one of its key food sources: rice. Rice is life, and it has long shaped the cultures, economies and eating habits of various countries around the world. Originating largely in the valleys of Asia (in particular of South-East Asia) and only later exported to other continents, rice now provides 21% of the energy used by human beings. There are a huge number of varieties, and can grow in wet, humid conditions were other crops would not survive. Rice fields, of which there are plenty in Piedmont, are complex and delicate biological environments. Man models them, often altering their equilibria. rice fields are actually fascinating places, which shed their ‘skin’ throughout the various phases of the year: from the spring with its watery surface reflecting the world, to the autumn, coloured with golden plants. The main Piedmontese rice fields are to be found between Vercelli and Novara, and were the stage of key moments in 20th-century history, when women came to work as mondine (rice pickers) from all over the North of Italy. This was the stage of the first female workers’ struggles. For many of them, going to work in the paddy fields was the only experience of a journey that would take them away from their families, into a different context: one of hard labour but also of conviviality and sharing.
Elena Mazzi was born in 1984 in Reggio Emilia (Italy). She received her BFA in 2007 in History of Art from Siena University, and her MFA in 2011 in Visual Art from IUAV, Venice University. She was selected for an exchange program at Royal Academy of Art (Konsthogskolan) of Stockholm.
She participated in different solo and collective exhibitions in Italy and abroad. Since 2011 she attended different residency programs and workshops such as HIAP (FIN), Via Farini (IT), Guilmi Art Project (IT), Foundacion Botin (SP), Bevilacqua La Masa (IT), Fondazione Spinola Banna (IT), Dolomiti contemporanee (IT), Botkyrka Konsthall Air (SE).
She is one of the finalists at Termoli Prize, Celeste Prize, Fabbri prize, Meru prize. In 2015 she is invited to participate in the 14° Istanbul Biennal, winning Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo prize, and to the 17° Mediterranean Biennal winning the Antwork prize, and again in the same year she assisted and performed for artist Joan Jonas. In 2016 she is invited to participate at the 16°Quadriennale di Roma, she wins the Illy cafè prize for a residency program at Fondazione Pistoletto and she receives a special mention for 'Arte, Patrimonio e Diritti Umani'prize given by Connecting Cultures association.
Elena Mazzi currently lives and works in Venice.
Her poetics deals with the relationship between man and the environment in which he lives and with which he must reckon on a daily basis. This analysis, which often follows an anthropological approach, investigates and documents an identity which is at the same time personal and collective, relating to a specific territory, and giving rise to forms of exchange and transformation.
www.elenamazzi.com
