(IT)

The limes and the invasions

However, the Cold War period was the last time Friuli Venezia Giulia functioned as a defensive position: the outbreak of Yugoslav Wars started a new age in which this region became a haven and a welcoming land for fugitives. Even though today the region’s identity is mainly grounded in the cultural contamination and in the cohabitation of different ethnic groups, it is not possible to erase the invasions and the derived feeling of danger, which have characterized its society for many centuries.

B#Side War has always been attentive to the traces of armed conflicts left on the territory and with this exhibition it aims at underlining the historical aspect of Friuli Venezia Giulia as limes, especially through the comparison with other countries who have suffered the same condition of cross-border land. In the exhibit it is therefore possible to see some site-specific artworks created by four artists during a residency on the territory, but also other works from previous exhibitions curated by IoDeposito, through which the theme can be analyzed from different historical and geographical points of view. Although these experiences might seem outdated in the eyes of new generations, there actually are many people who still find themselves living in similar conditions, therefore it’s up to the arts and culture world to help all these communities, both from the past and living in the present, by making sure that their situation won’t be forgotten.

Works on display

threat from the east

As the title itself suggests, Invasion examines the theme of identity and invasion nowadays, starting from some observations on the islamic society that aim however at encouraging a wider debate on global culture. The artistic installation recreates the environment of a house interior provided with all the classic everyday life objects, which are although covered with a peculiar green textile. This colour, called “islamic green”, is used to contextualise the artwork in the islamic culture and particularly in Iran, native land of Ahad Moslemi.
Through this artwork, which has a highly symbolic value, the two artists materialize the subtle process through which the national culture enters in the individual’s private sphere while also trying to understand its dynamics, that are sometimes difficult to identify: the green fabric tightly stitched around the objects indicates the impossibility of having a personal space completely free from society’s cultural impositions. Mestriner and Moslemi surely highlighted one of the most controversial problems in nowadays world, which is increasingly generating conflicts between mass culture and those individuals who do not identify themselves with the values promoted by it.

Spioni e spiati (Spies and Spied) is a project organized in three dyptchics of photos which examine the difficulties of private life in the DDR, the Democratic German Republic, best known as East Germany. Each photo is divided into two sections, a vertical one on the left portraying the interior of a low-income house and a horizontal one on the right which shows the spaces of the Stasi buildings, the ministry for state security. The latter was the emblem of a minute and invasive control in the private sphere of the citizens, who were forced to live in an atmosphere of terror and oppression.
The belief that every family could hide a potential spy justified the subtle governmental practices of surveillance, which, in Boschini’s artwork appear in the form of the telephone tapping. In the series of photos we can see different placements equipped with telephones, harmless and lifeless objects which in this context convey an ideology rooted in the past, but still permeating our everyday life more than we are willing to admit.

Works in the exhibition

From the residences

The artwork “Luce al Kita” is the result of a residency that the artist experienced between May and June 2020 in the Isonzo area, where she could come in contact with the local folklore by interviewing historians and activists. Her attention was caught especially by the mythological figure of the Krivapete, independent and free women who lived in contact with nature and were believed to have supernatural powers.

The artwork was inspired by the painting Critica a Krivapete, located at Sottovernassino (San Pietro al Natisone), depicting an ancestral and liberating dance in which the protagonists move around a fireplace close to a cave. In particular, the artist decided to replicate the actions of one of these women, who was focused on braiding a traditional flower garland, the Kita, which symbolized the arrival of spring and the end of winter.

Cosco’s performance consists precisely of the creation of a kita, realized using some characteristic plant species of Natisone valleys picked up by the artist itself during the residency: this action is meant as a symbol of peace and hope after the wars and the invasions that the population of Friuli Venezia Giulia has suffered.

Alice Mestriner and Ahad Moslemi’s artistic residency took place in the area of Canal del Ferro – Val Canale between December 2019 and February 2020. During this time they took the chance to research thoroughly the community and the history of this area, which they later extensively documented in an artistic ethnography. Thanks to this experience, they have created the artistic installation called “Albero a Gomiti”, a kinetic artwork named after a peculiar kind of machine the two artists discovered and admired during their research on the territory.

The artwork consists of a moving platform which ceaselessly mixes some earth personally picked up by the artists in Austria, Italy and Slovenia: this process symbolically recalls the movement of the people who travelled in between those areas for centuries, creating the cultural mixture that characterises Friuli Venezia Giulia.
The linguistic and cultural mixture originated from the mobility of the various social groups has been Mestriner and Moslemi’s main focus in this installation: the two artists have preferred to highlight the dynamics of the encounter rather than concentrating on the conflicts originating from the limes condition, in order to share a message of peaceful coexistence between peoples.

The artwork The Window / Eve and Adam was created after Nantia Scordioupoulou’s residency in the area between Palmanova and Cervignano, where she had the chance to analyse the impact of the invasions on the local community’s identity.

After her ethnographic research, the artist decided to create a public land art installation consisting in three reflecting vertical panels, placed in a specific area of the Europa Unita park in Cervignano. The title on one hand gives the idea of the mirror as a window to consider the historical landscape from a different perspective, but on the other hand, due to its format, it connects the artwork to the traditional diptych depicting Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. With this installation the artist aims at establishing a new relationship between the park and the visitors, who are invited to actively take part in the artwork by positioning themselves in front of the mirrors and creating a kind of personal painting.

This kind of participatory art has been transmitted by Nantia Scordioupoulou also to teens and children living in the area through some workshops patronized by Comfort Zone Atelier.

far from fvg

Her family history, which involved traumatic experiences related to the downfall of the cambogian regime, enabled the artist to develop a peculiar sensibility for the issues relating to wars and uprooting. However her peculiarity lies in her ability of counterbalancing the intense themes of her art with a certain elegance and formal lightness, characteristics that you can find in this artwork.
Listen is made up of twenty human heads molds of concrete lacking ears and with closed eyes, which recall the depersonalization and the anonymity suffered by the victims of all wars, who can find in this artwork the recognition they have been denied for years. Its power not only lies in the message, but also in the sensibility by which the artist has conveyed it: thanks to the meditative expressions of the faces and to its whiteness, Lang Ea managed to create an artwork with a strong visual impact that can emotionally engage the spectator without resorting to the gory or explicit formal solutions often used for war themes. Even if one of Listen’s objectives is that of denouncing, it actually aims at directing a message of hope in order to wish the victims of past and present injustices to be able to receive justice at last and to rest in peace.

biographies

Ahad Moslemi (1983) is an Iranian artist, who personally experienced the consequences of the Islamic Revolution. He studied visual arts between Teheran and Quebec and in 2016 he participated as a lecturer to the Venice Biennale. Since then he lives in Italy, where he collaborates with Alice Mestriner
Alice Mestriner (1994) is an Italian artist, who studied Visual Arts and Multimedia in Venice. In 2016 she participated to the Venice Biennale as a workshop curator, and since that year she collaborates with Ahad Moslemi.
This duo, constituted by two artists coming from different cultures and generations, transforms diversity in complementarity, allowing them to have a bifocal vision on topics such as time, language and identity.