A Natural Oasis is a project promoted by the Republic of San Marino, Ministry for Education and Culture – Cultural Institutes (BJCEM board) in collaboration with the University of the Republic of San Marino. It has been designed by Little Constellation, in the context of the Bienniale of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean.
The project was born as a Summer School hosted in the Townshipof Montegiardino (Republic of San Marino) in the University’s residency spaces. It is dedicated to enhancing an important, historic art event in San Marino – the exhibition that took place in 1991, Provoc’arte, which was intended to be the first public art event in this tiny republic. The idea developed by curators Alessandro Castiglioni and Simone Frangi aims to use fragments of memories/recollections and historical-archive material that may question the pertinence of this event, as well as a possible contemporary reconsideration and reinterpretation on the part of young artists, selected by open invitation and who come from small states within the Little Constellation network and BJCEM member nations.
Selected artists are: Sarah Capesius (L); Martina Conti (SM); Viola Conti (SM); Lito Kattou & Leontios Toumpouris (CY); Alessandro Di Pietro (I), Katrín I. Jónsdóttir Hjördísardóttir Hirt (IS – USA), Nico Macina (SM), Francesca Mangion (M), Orestis Mavroudis (GR), Mnemoscape (Elisa Adams, Alessandra Ferrini) (I – UK), Quim Packard (E – F), Michela Pozzi (SM), Giacomo Raffaelli (I – UK), Jacopo Rinaldi (I).
The second stage of A Natural Oasis took place in November 2014 in Milan, at Viafarini DOCVA. Young artists were invited to work for three days in a quite precise manner on the relationships between archive practice and video documentation production.
The third stage is titled Performing History and is scheduled for 23 and 24 June 2015 in Gibraltar as part of international events for the exhibition The Voices of The Sirens / Listen to the Sirens | Space for Contemporary Art, Gibraltar UK by the Little Constellation network. The workshop will be held in the historic and prestigious Garrison Library.
The project’s final exhibition, scheduled from 22 October to 22 November 2015, has been specifically conceived for Viafarini DOCVA as part of the Fabbrica del Vapore in Milan, for Mediterranea 17 Young Artists Biennale. This is intended to be a quite peculiar show: the presence, in the venue, of both site-specific works made by the artists with a display of historical archival material from Provoc’arte 1991 and from other workshops, including Gibraltar. Therefore, the aim is to create a fluid, non-hierarchical, horizontal post-colonial, performative, and performed archive hypothesis, which has been theorized in the work premises.
Documentations: Davide Frabegoli, Davide Pagliardini, assistant for comunication: Giulia Ceccoli.
DOWNLOAD: DOSSIER – A NATURAL OASIS SAN MARINO – KATALOGOS MILANO – 2014