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Elena Forin in dialogue with Chiara Casarin
I received the image of an architecture that grows thanks to the effort of many masteries and people. It is a collaborative work, which reaches its fulfillment only when all the gears work. The term linked to this image is “residency”. So I thought about all the desired and sought connections, when an artist encounters a place, a reality, a context to think and give life to a work. A Collection was born from a residency, meant as a practical encounter between the vision of an artist and that of a collector, Giovanni Bonotto, who is also a visionary entrepreneur. What implications does this meeting have for you, as the project’s curator? What are the elements that make up this unique formula between art, vision and production?Elena Forin, curator If A
Collection is a symphony, the residency is the rehearsal room. As in a concert in which all the instruments, after having trained for a long time on their own, come together to move in unison and create a unique work. As the artists sit down on the loom that is weaving their tapestry, the emotion is great. A crescendo that reaches its climax when we take down the finished work, and for the first time, we lay it on the ground and we all admire it together. During the tapestry production, the presence of the artists is crucial. They slowly establish a dialogue with the yarns—as they listen to each other, look for the other, until it clicks and they get going along. It is a mutual discovery. On the one hand we can only guess what an artist's work will become once translated into a tapestry, so we focus on ingredients such as materials, colors, textures, and those small interpretations that make this translation unique. On the other hand, the artist relies on our craftsmanship and discovers the power of a collaboration that incredibly amplifies the original strength of the work.
Chiara Casarin, curator
Chiara Casarin is a curator, and Giovanni Bonotto is an entrepreneur. Together they carry out the project A Collection, a particular formula for an artistic residency, that is a meeting between artist, curator and entrepreneur aimed at creating a tapestry, rather than a working period aimed at formalizing an ad hoc project. Bonotto is in fact both a textile manufacturer and one of the largest Fluxus collectors in Italy and Europe. He developed A Collection to involve artists in a production process where different expertises come together, and the yarn used is created specifically for the occasion with plastic materials collected from the sea, in a combination that entails market, production, labour, knowledge, language and environment.
This project is based on the exchange between the productive, aesthetic and conceptual context, unlike many realities that offer a residence space but do not pursue a real interaction. The work translates into a peculiar language, which presupposes an in-depth analysis of the work and its visual components. So: rethinking languages, rethinking the work’s consistency, restarting from production, understanding residence as a system that involves not only the artist but the whole circuit in which his work fits. At this moment I think it is important to consider all actors, in order to find solutions that involve them all, otherwise the art system might be significantly compromised. A Collection is all this.
Elena Forin, curator
Elena Forin is an independent curator and a member of IKT, the International Association of Curators. His research combines interest in the most recent artistic developments - installation, video, performance, social, collaborative and site-specific practices - and their historical roots of the 60s and 70s. Between 2009 and 2011 she curated various exhibitions for MACRO, Museum of Contemporary Art Rome, including the personal exhibitions of Urs Lüthi (with LM Barbero), Jacob Hashimoto, Jamie Shovlin, Sarah Braman, Esther Stocker and Riccardo De Marchi ( with LM Barbero) and the special projects of Arcangelo Sassolino, Arthur Duff, Carlo Bernardini and Giuseppe Stampone. With LaRete Art Projects she has curated group exhibitions such as Click or Clash? Collaboration strategies (Marco Giovani, Niklas Goldbach, Yves Netzhammer; with J. Draganović), Ready to jump? (Triennale di Milano), ZOOM IN (Special Project and Award) and Video Lounge: NBK, Neue Berliner Kunstverein (Art Miami, Miami, FL), and solo shows by Suara Welitoff, Silvano Tessarollo (with J. Draganović), David Rickard and Roberto De Pol.
She coordinates Talk | Show, a series of conferences on site specificity (Galleria civica di Modena), and collaborates with both and with independent spaces and various international institutions (such as Kunsthalle Osnabrück, Germany; Łaźnia Center for Contemporary Art, Gdańsk, Poland) for the realization of exhibition and scientific projects.
A COLLECTION is a visionary collection of ten projects by as many artists made in tapestry by Giovanni Bonotto, curated by Chiara Casarin.
A COLLECTION combines thoughts and hands, as a millennial tradition joins the present artistic expression.
A COLLECTION intertwines the contemporary research of young and established Italian artists with the creative vision of new weaving techniques. Starting from extraordinary yarns obtained from the processing of recycled plastic, large tapestries are created, in a combination of artistic design and care for the planet.
A COLLECTION testifies that it is possible to combine environmental consciousness with the production of luxury objects, through technological research and creativity.
A COLLECTION is the materialization of a simple assumption: thanks to their infinite colors and materiality, the yarns obtained from recycled plastic will make up large detailed and extremely refined tapestries.
A project by Giovanni Bonotto Chiara Casarin
a-collection.org