DIPLOMATIC ART 2017, 3rd edition
CASA E TRASLOCO / HOME AND RESETTLEMENT (Maria Orosan-Telea, curator)
The Diplomatic Art exhibition series that started in 2014 continues with
the 2017-2018 edition, including several events dedicated to Italy (which
opened the first consulate in Timisoara, in 1922). The first phase of the
project took place in July 2017 - a study-tour conducted by the Prin Banat
Association with the anthropologist Francesco Marano (Università degli Studi
della Basilicata, Matera) and the artist Sandro Bracchitta (Accademia di Belli
Arti, Palermo) on a route described by Francesco Griselini in his book Attempt of
Political and Natural History of Timisoara’s Banat. The two residencies offered
by the Honorary Consulate of Italy in Timisoara, at the proposal of the
Diplomatic Art Association, were occasioned by the 300th anniversary of
Francesco Griselini’s birth.
With a strong interdisciplinary approach, the two artistic events
(Francesco Marano's exhibition in November 2017 and Sandro Bracchitta’s
exhibition in the spring of 2018) organized as a result of the two residencies
are situated at the confluence of anthropology and contemporary art. The theme
proposed is based on the concept of "home" (casa) in relation to
"resettlement" (trasloco).
Starting from the premise that "home" represents a mix of
experiences and feelings that relate to a certain place and to certain persons,
the two exhibitions will approach particular aspects and connections between
stability and uprooting. What makes you leave your home in order to re-organize
your life elsewhere? When does a totally foreign place become “home”? How does
this happen today and how did it happen in the past? The two particular cases
that these artistic events will bring to question are related to the current
population of an area in Southern Italy and the Italian colonists settled in
Banat at the end of the 18th century.
Francesco Marano proposes a participatory artistic project documenting a
custom specific to Southern Italy, namely to send parcels with home-made food
to the children who left to study elsewhere. Food becomes, in this case, an
attribute of the family environment, the feeling of safety and well-being
granted by their parents’ home. In addition, the exhibition will include other
documentary films based on Marano's anthropological research which evoke the
deep connection of people to the places where they were born and where they
live for a lifetime.
The exhibitions will be followed by meetings of the two Italian guests with
students of the West University Timisoara.
1. Thursday, November 2nd at 18.00, at the Helios Gallery: opening of the exhibition of the Italian
anthropologist Francesco Marano, professor at the Basilicata University of
Matera (European Capital of Culture
2019).
2. Friday, November 3rd at 14.00, at the Mansarda Gallery of the Faculty of
Arts and Design: conference “The Relationship between Anthropology and
Contemporary Art”, held by Francesco Marano.
These events mark 300 years since the birth of Francesco Griselini
(1717-1787) and are the result of the first phase of the “Casa e trasloco” (1)
project that took place in July 2017 - a study tour, “In the Footsteps of
Griselini”, guided by the Prin Banat Association, with the anthropologist
Francesco Marano (Matera) and the artist Sandro Bracchitta (Ragusa, Sicily).
The Diplomatic Art 3rd edition of will end with Casa este trasloco (3), an
exhibition of Sandro Bracchitta in 2018.
