SPECIAL PROJECTS
PUNCTUM PROJECT was born on the invitation of Be SpectACTive!, a large-scale European cooperation project including project partners such as European festivals, theatres, cultural organisations, universities and a research center.
Within this frame, Salvo Lombardo conceived the PUNCTUM project, in collaboration with Fabritia D’Intino, with the aim of developing a relational practice that would investigate the theme of "spectatorship". The different groups of spectators were invited to experience this practice as part of the 2021 edition of European Spectators Day, a digital and community-based event that every year involves and connects the local groups of active spectators.
PUNCTUM project is aimed to broaden the possible questions on the role of the spectator and on the role of the gaze observing a live artwork; the project proposes a relational and partecipative experience based on the activation of a form of “embedded look” observing a live artwork.
Why does my gaze on an artwork involve me? Why does it excite me? How do I interact with that work and how does it interact with me? How does that work look back at me? What happens when I am confronted with something immensely beautiful, challenging, or puzzling? How does a work trigger spectators’ perception and memory? What kind of new dynamics or imaginaries an artwork can really activate?
In his beautiful essay on photography entitled “La Chambre Claire” (Paris 1980) Roland Barthes investigates the very essence of the artwork (using photography in this specific case), trying to go beyond the ideas of illustration and representation. In this Barthes’ reflection, the subject who observes a photo (spectator) animates the photo, and in the same way the photo animates the spectator: this happens through a punctum.
Therefore the punctum is a very particular detail that escapes the general gaze and that “stings me.” It leaves me a wound or runs through me. It is a detail, even a minimal one, that activates my system of memories, of analogies, of associations, of perceptions and that stimulates the subjectivity of my gaze until it becomes a kind of “re-action”. The same also happens when I find myself in front of a live artwork: a performance for example.
The famous artist Marcel Duchamp claimed that the gaze of spectator complete an artwork as well: “the creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act” (M. Duchamp, The creative act, 1957).
↗ Scopri di più
RESURFACE FESTIVAL di sguardi postcoloniali, è un progetto multidisciplinare curato da Viviana Gravano, Giulia Grechi e Salvo Lombardo. Il Festival nasce a Roma nel 2019 dalla necessità di favorire un contesto di riflessione e uno spazio di condivisione esteso ad un pubblico il più ampio possibile, su concetti come identità, diversità, modernità, canone, stereotipo e conflitto, indagando in particolare gli immaginari prodotti nel periodo coloniale in Italia, dall’Unità fino al fascismo, che hanno veicolato rappresentazioni atte a forgiare l’identità italiana nel profondo.
Attraverso un nutrito programma di performance, installazioni, mostre, pratiche partecipative, proiezioni video e filmiche, affiancate da momenti di approfondimento, physical lectures, dibattiti, sharing practices, RESURFACE si pone come occasione per analizzare le “riemersioni”, i ritorni in superficie, di quegli immaginari coloniali nelle modalità di rappresentazione diffuse nel nostro presente oggi, ogni qualvolta si parli di stranieri, migranti, persone LGBTQ, persone diversamente abili e simili.
L’edizione 2019 si è svolta quasi interamente al Museo preistorico etnografico "Luigi Pigorini” e al Museo delle arti e delle tradizioni popolari "Lamberto Loria” del polo museale MUCIV di Roma, che ha da poco ereditato parte del patrimonio del Museo Coloniale di epoca fascista e la cui direzione artistica è impegnata da alcuni anni in un lavoro di rilettura del proprio cospicuo e importante patrimonio in chiave postcoloniale.
Le attività proposte sono curate e coordinate in sinergia tra la compagnia Chiasma e Routes Agency_Cura of contemporary Arts di Roma in partnership con l’Istituto Cine-TV Rossellini, la Libreria Griot e la School of Modern Languages and Cultures della University of Durham.
RESURFACE FESTIVAL di sguardi postcoloniali is a multi-disciplinary project curated by Viviana Gravano, Giulia Grechi and Salvo Lombardo. The Festival was born in Rome in 2019 from the need to design a public space for a wide audience willing to reflect on concepts such as identity, diversity, modernity, canon, stereotype and conflict, while investigating the social imaginaries common to the colonial period - from Italian unification to fascism – which forged the Italian identity.
RESURFACE’s rich program of events, performances, installations, exhibitions, participatory practices, video and film screening, debates, physical lectures and sharing practices, is a precious opportunity to investigate the "re-emergences" of the past colonial imaginaries on the current surface of today’s representations pertaining to foreigners, migrants, LGBTQ community, disabled people or other minority groups.
The 2019 edition took place almost entirely at the Luigi Pigorini National Museum of Prehistory and Ethnography and at the Lamberto Loria Museum of Popular Art and Tradition within the MUCIV museum complex in Rome, which has recently acquired part of the heritage of the former Colonial Museum of the fascist era. For this reasons, MUCIV’s artistic direction is committed to working into a reinterpretation of its conspicuous and noticeable heritage in a postcolonial key.
The proposed activities are curated and coordinated in collaboration with the Chiasma Company and Routes Agency Cura of Contemporary Arts in Rome in partnership with the Istituto Cine-TV Roberto Rossellini, the Griot Library and the School of Modern Languages and Cultures of Durham's University.
Il progetto 18M8L (18 Mesi, 8 Luoghi) nasce con l’obiettivo di creare un’alleanza fra organismi di produzione della danza (mk, KLm – leader del progetto, VAN, TIR Danza, Spellbound, Chiasma) e una rete di 9 festival, spazi e compagnie internazionali: Herengracht 401 (H401) ad Amsterdam (Paesi Bassi), Festival Dansat / Aliansat a Barcelona (Spagna), Be Festival a Birmingham (Regno Unito), Ehrenfeldstudios e.V. a Colonia e Schaubühne a Lipsia (Germania), Théâtre Sévelin 36 a Losanna (Svizzera), Klap e La Fabriks (LFKs) a Marsiglia (Francia), Tipperary Dance a Tipperary (Irlanda).
18M8L vuole sperimentare nuove forme cooperative che permettano di affrontare lo scenario globale in rapido cambiamento, innescare processi di scambio e condivisione che consentano di ripensare il nostro modo di lavorare, promuovere e distribuire, produrre, coinvolgendo in maniera trasversale l’ecosistema della danza (performer, coreograf*, danzator*, producer e promoter) e disegnando nuovi modelli sostenibili e inclusivi, preservare spazi per la ricerca e sperimentazione artistica per instaurare nuove e più profonde relazioni con i luoghi e le comunità locali.
Il progetto è stato sviluppato con il contributo ed il supporto della Direzione Generale Spettacolo – MiC per la call Boarding Pass Plus 2021 – 2022.
The project 18M8L (18 Months, 8 Locations) is promoted by an alliance of dance production organizations (mk, KLm – as project leader, together with Spellbound, VAN, TIR Danza and Chiasma; every organization represents a variety of dance companies and artists), in collaboration with a network of 9 international festivals, venues and companies: Herengracht 401 (H401) in Amsterdam (Netherlands), Festival Dansat / Aliansat in Barcelona (Spain), Be Festival in Birmingham (United Kingdom), Ehrenfeldstudios e.V. in Cologne and Schaubühne in Leipzig (Germany), Théâtre Sévelin 36 in Lausanne (Switzerland), Klap and La Fabriks (LFKs) in Marseille (France), Tipperary Dance in Tipperary (Ireland).
18M8L aims to experiment new collaborative possibilities that could allow to exist within a rapidly changing world scenario, to activate exchange and shared practices, to rethink how to work within our sector, to approach production and distribution by involving the dance system in a transverse motion (between performers, choreographers, dancers, producers and promoters), designing newer, more inclusive and sustainable models, to preserve the spaces dedicated to artistic reaserch and experimental practices in order to establish deeper relationships between places and local communities.
The project is supported by the Italian Ministry of Culture in the frame of the call for proposal Boarding Pass Plus 2021 – 2022.
↗ Scopri di più