Corrispondenze: Semi
April 2022
I publication by Corrispondenze
Correspondences is both a paper space and a relationship platform. It is an investigation in progress that has “correspondence” as its founding principle and the aim of highlighting the interconnections between human dwelling and the place that hosts it.
Inhabiting, as we understand it, does not stop at the threshold of our house, nor behind the walls of the city. It extends from the natural environment to the relationship we have with it. It speaks of places, but also of relationships between the people who inhabit them.
Semi (Seeds) is the title of the first publication by Corrisondenze. It refers to the seeds enclosed within the texts that we propose here. Seeds that will fall to the ground during reading in order to germinate into new ideas through the interconnection of stimuli and thoughts.
Corrispondenze| Semi looks at the Turin territory through the narration of projects that investigate space from an artistic, but also anthropological, social, urbanistic and naturalistic point of view.
You can purchase “Semi” at the following bookstores and online shops:
Pressato Coffee and Books, Via Gian Francesco Bellezia, 16/B, 10122 Torino TO
Paint it Black, Via Fratelli Calandra, 6a, 10123 Torino TO
Sections
TERRITORY AND ENVIRONMENT
This section investigates the relationship between human habitation and the environment. A relationship that takes concrete form in what we define as territory, the result of a delicate of coexistence and correspondence between living beings, a point of contact with otherness.
Erbario
Urbano
BY SIMONE SCARDINO
INTRODUCTION BY
ANDREA LERDA & SIMONE SCARDINO
Simone Scardino presents Erbario Urbano (Urban Herbarium), research that focuses on the plant world from an eco-anthropocentric point of view in favour of a conscious and functional coexistence between nature and culture. Erbario Urbano stems from the desire to get to know the species with which we coexist closely, establishing a line of dialogue with them, with a particular focus on the relationship
that exists between the urban environment and what we commonly define as ‘weeds’.
Andrea Lerda introduces the Erbario Urbano project through a short conversation with Simone Scardino, giving
insights and reflections to highlight the importance of recovering a feeling of empathy with the nature that surrounds us.
Through ecopedagogical practice, he proposes to return to cultivating and watering the seed that, within us, connects us to the world of which we are a part.
COMMUNITY AND PARTICIPATION
This section aims to analyse and return artistic experiences that have as their goal the creation of spaces, both physical and immaterial, of sharing, dialogue, and contact. Places in which participation is presented as a necessary element of the relationship.
In conversation with Progetto RESCUE!
CURATED BY
PAOLA BOSCAINI & CRISTINA MATERASSI
Progetto RESCUE! (Project RESCUE!) is a collective operating in the performing arts.
Born in Turin in 2019, it presents itself as a multidisciplinary and intercultural group of artists and scholars from Africa,
Latin America and Europe. Progetto RESCUE! believes in the transformative potential of art in the territory in which it operates and, with its projects, aims to build a social and artistic network
that brings people closer to civic and cultural participation.
In these pages of conversation with some members of the collective topics of social relevance are addressed.
Such as the role of public spaces as a stage for performative and shared inhabiting, the impact of the encounter with the Other, and the cyclical nature of redemption.
Peogetto RESCUE! with its practices sows actions, values and concepts. It creates opportunities for ‘authentic encounters’ that reveal accessible and totally participatory spaces.
FOCUS ON TERRITORY
«Making a World»
Exploring coexistence in the Dora territory
BY ALINA ROXANA SALAHORU
The river Dora has been an important infrastructure for Turin, both from an economic-productive and morphological-
urban point of view. It has been a river ‘of service’ to the city; in particular, of service to production. This has led to the emergence
of production enclaves and energy mobility networks, which have suffocated and fragmented the territory of the river. Behind an
only superficial post-industrial identity, this space reveals itself to be very heterogeneous, a territory with different ‘climates’ that continually negotiate their coexistence. Trying to shift from a functionalist approach to take into account the complex
stratification of the territory the intention is to look differently at this place, also inspired by the reflections expressed by the philosopher-urbanist Sébastien Marot in his text “Making a world”.
A re-exploration that overlaps with the exploration of the concept of co-presence.
CLEARING -
AWAY
Graphic and critical representation of the material collected during the projects carried out as part of the FAREspazio research. These interventions, which originate precisely from a process of correspondence, are proposed here in order to continue a potentially endless practice.
What does inhabiting a space mean for you?
BY PAOLA BOSCAINI E CRISTINA MATERASSI
Corrispondenze is an artistic project born from the collaboration between Paola Boscaini and Cristina Materassi. Its aim is to investigate the forms that inhabiting imprints on the environment. Starting from the question “what does inhabiting a space mean to you?”, a participatory artistic practice was proposed with the aim of structuring a shared reflection on the elements that each person considers fundamental for inhabiting a place. For us, creating relationships, sharing perceptions and collecting individual testimonies is the only way to understand and narrate how the essence of living is implemented in a given context.
What do we need to inhabit a space? What enables us to feel part of it? When can we say that we truly inhabit a place? What do we feel if this is denied us?