La Repubblica Delle Meraviglie
La Repubblica Delle Meraviglie
On May 22, 2018, in Venice, opens La Repubblica delle Meraviglie / The Republic of Wonders, the new project by Vinci / Galesi (Sasha Vinci, 1980 and Maria Grazia Galesi 1988), curated by Diego Mantoan and Paola Tognon, and conceived after winning the Sustainable Art Prize 2017, launched by Ca ‘Foscari University of Venice, within the Ca’ Foscari Sustainable Program, in collaboration with ArtVerona. The project is realized with the support of aA29 Art Project gallery (Milan / Caserta).
The Republic of Wonders is a collective action and a traveling performance along the streets, squares (campi) and canals of Venice, imagined and designed to create a space and time for reflection that evokes and re-enacts the stories and desires of the communities that built the ancient lagoon city. The site-specific project is proposed as an action of wide resonance with the aim of soliciting gazes and reflections on the contradictions characteristic to all contemporary geographies. Through the use of flowers, an empathetic and direct metaphor of beauty and caducity, energy and fragility, The Republic of Wonders formalizes and restores the conflict that belongs to those who, without cancelling the complexity of the present, imagine new forms for a change; those who are at the same time aware of a renewed future perspective in continuity with the 17 UN objectives of the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development.
The optimal place for humanity
The duo Vinci / Galesi takes up and develops for this project the research already started for Mutabis (Scicli) and La terra dei fiori (Royal Palace of Caserta) in which topics such as environmental, social and political sustainability have been approached with originality and effectiveness. The Republic of Wonders, like the optimal place for Thomas More, “wants to be a land in which to imagine forms of social renewal and sustainable development for a peaceful society, where culture dominates and regulates people’s lives … Our performance in Venice, the utopian city par excellence, symbolically becomes the moment in which a land of freedom and participation is set up”. The Republic of Wonders reconnects itself to the history, nature and symbolism of the lagoon territory, thus becoming the place where every being finds to be infinite and capable of shining with that wonder that nourishes the consciences.
Five Acts towards a concrete and sustainable utopia
Vinci / Galesi conceived the project as an alternative dimension to the real one, and considered the flowers as a point of departure because they are symbols of rebirth and wonder, as well as concrete matter of work for both artists. Thus, the Venetian performance is structured in five acts deployed in different places of the city. The acts are the symbolic and cadenced representation of the constitution of The Republic of Wonders, an ideal, unexpected and extraordinary place, where humans question themselves about the relationship between art and life, and about the responsibility towards the existent. The Republic of Wonders includes a sound harmony composed of several movements that recalls the symphonic genre, a drape, symbols, a constitutional map, a territory and a population. In the days leading up to the performance, Venice and Ca’ Foscari University are the laboratory of this utopia: students and researchers are invited by the artists – through workshops and meetings – to reflect on five themes chosen as foundational for the constitution of The Republic: alteritas, pluralitas, communitas, humanitas, naturalia et mirabilia.
The day before the performance, the artists, the Ca’ Foscari student community, together with all those involved in the project, will create the drape and other symbols with the flowers. The works will be brought to the heart of Venice during the performance of May 22nd. In October 2018, the action will be gathered in an exhibition hosted at the University in conjunction with the new edition of ArtVerona. For the occasion, a catalogue will be published that – as a travel diary – will document the project’s development and will include texts by the artists, curators, students and all the people involved in this creative journey.
Vinci / Galesi’s performance is included in the program of the Sustainable Development Festival 2018 promoted by the Italian Alliance for Sustainable Development, scheduled on a national scale on the same days.
Vinci / Galesi’s project in Venice coincides with the 150th anniversary of the foundation of Ca ‘Foscari University of Venice, which in 1868 was the first Italian institute to include commerce in its curricula, and one of the first three business schools in the world.
The symphony of La Repubblica delle Meraviglie, created by the artists in collaboration with the musician and composer Vincent Migliorisi, will be donated to Ca ‘Foscari University, as a way to put in evidence the importance of institutions dedicated to research and knowledge for the realization of this utopia.
The project is carried out with the support of the Mercato del Fiore Guarino and Kromato Edizioni.
http://www.unive.it/larepubblicadellemeraviglie
Sustainable Art Prize
https://www.unive.it/pag/29219/
Ca ‘Foscari University of Venice, in collaboration with ArtVerona, has launched the Sustainable Art Prize in 2017, an award on sustainability issues, dedicated to the artists featured at ArtVerona.
The aim of the project is to promote themes related to sustainable development, encouraging greater awareness and stimulating the commitment of artists to address these issues as a potential tool for disseminating and creating awareness on topics related to the great global challenges, in continuity with the 17 UN objectives of the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development.
The award consists in the production of an installation, an exhibition or a performance that is linked to the issues of sustainability to be held at Ca ‘Foscari University in Venice. The realization of the work will involve the students and will allow the artists to work within a new field of experimentation, putting themselves in relation with the community of the University in Venice, in an unprecedented encounter between the artistic methodology and t research.
For the first edition, the jury decided to award the Prize to the collective formed by Sasha Vinci and Maria Grazia Galesi, presented by aA29 Art Project gallery (Milan / Caserta).
The artists have convinced the jury for the dedication, to say the least genetic, with which they address the issues of environmental, social and political sustainability. Moreover, they have astonished them because of their ability to translate this commitment into aesthetically achieved projects that are particularly effective from a communicative point of view. Finally, the honesty and willingness of the artists to involve the territory and the communities in their work, which emerges as a characteristic feature of their interventions, was greatly appreciated.