THE BODY OF/AT WORK

is a series of situated interventions was premiered at resilient communities, Italian Pavilion at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, on 5th June 2021 in conjunction with the exhibition Elena Cologni. Pratiche di cura, o del cur(v)are, curator Gabi Scardi May 17 – July 4, 2021, at Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Palazzetto Tito, Venice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                    The Body of/at Work  panel discussion at the Italian Pavilion, Biennale of Architecture, La Biennale di Venezia, on 9th November 2021, included wonderful contributions by: Valeria Facchin, Gabi Scardi, Elke Krasny, Margherita Vanore, Helena Reckitt, Natalie Rudd, Merel Visse, and the curator of the Pavilion Alessandro Melis.

Further events followed at: London Festival of Architecture (2021); Parco Sempione, Milan (2021, Harald Szeemann prize, IKT- INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CURATORS OF CONTEMPORARY ART) and at Crespi d’Adda (Unesco World Heritage site, 2023) as below.

This is part of an ongoing project including a series of public interventions (and relevant publications). These take place in different locations referring to the social history of places and architecture of women labour in relation to cloth, mostly in preindustrial times, when the body was central to labour.  These places include laundries and washhouses, and factories, but also public spaces where some of these works took place. The project looks at including: women’s manual labour as caring; the concept of the threshold between public and private; the relationship with places of labour; the body as a measuring instrument; dialogic art as practice of caring-with.

The body is instrumental to creating the bond we develop with the places we relate to in our everyday life and in relation to work. The body as an instrument for a non cartesian measurement of the everchanging process of attachment to places, and how that relationship impacts their sense of self in and act of feminist un-spatialization.

‘Recurring in Elena Cologni’s work are participatory choreographies or “experiential exercises”, performed with the aid of device-sculptures intended as “measuring instruments” to metaphorically verify the impact of individual trajectories in the public space on the process of attachment to places. Actions and paths are activated in the public space, seen as an area of collective requests, and are studied taking into account trajectories related to specific experiences or patterns existing within the city’  Gabi Scardi

detail of image, courtesy of Comune di Venezia, Settore Cultura – Biblioteca civica VEZ, Fondo Archivio Giacomelli

 

5 June: The Body of/at Work, experiential exercises part of resilient communities Padiglione Italia, Biennale di Architettura 2021, Venice Biennale

 

the sculptures from Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa were taken to the Biennale, and around the city according to selected locations (as per map below)

                            The
‘Body of/at Work (Giardino delle Vergini), video screening at Italian Pavilion, Venice Biennale of Architecture, Resilient Communities, curator Alessandro Melis
‘The Body of/at Work’, experiential exercises at Giardino delle Vergini, Italian Pavilion, Venice Biennale of Architecture, facilitators: Ilaria, Miriam, Giulia and Ignazio

18 May – 3 July 2021: The Body of/at Work experiential exercises with dialogic sculptures in the city of Venice

‘The Body of/at Work’, experiential exercises at Piazza San Marco , Italian Pavilion, Venice Biennale of Architecture, facilitators: Ilaria, Giulia, Rey and Ignazio

June 2021, London, UK: Care(less). On invisibility; Care(less). On forgetting; Care(less). On discarding, are part of the London Festival of Architecture

 
 ‘The Body of/at Work’, experiential exercises at Magdalene Passage, London, London Festival of Architecture

16 September 2021, Parco Sempione, Milan, Italy, curator Gabi Scardi, and with Elke Krasny and Francesca Picchi

‘The Body of/at Work’, experiential exercises on Burri’s Teatro Continuo Milano.

‘The Body of/at Work’, experiential exercises

‘The Body of/at Work’, experiential exercises on Burri’s Teatro Continuo Milano.

The experiential exercises took place by the public art pieces: Teatro Continuo by Alberto Burri and Seduta Musicale by Arman, in the same park. The context was useful to discuss my interventions in public space as contributing to the discourse around care in public space, and in relation to public art.  The project won the Harald Szeeman prize, from IKT- INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CURATORS OF CONTEMPORARY ART Congress 2021, where a video documentation was presented on 16th of October.

 

4 November 2023 (3 pm: experiential exercises; 5 pm: in conversation)

Crespi d’Adda (UNESCO World Heritage site)

Gabi Scardi in conversation with Elena Cologni

‘The Body of/at Work’, experiential exercises with participants in Crespi d’Adda (UNESCO).

 

Other related presentations:

Cologni, E., (2022) ‘(Un)Monuments of the Everyday. Marking the Journey from Home to Work through the Experience of Venetian Weaving Factory’s Workers’. In REPRESENTING PASTS – VISIONING FUTURES Conference 01-03 December 2022 AMPS, Queen’s University Belfast, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, National University of Singapore

Cologni, E., (2021) ‘The Journey from Home to Work through the Experience of the Venice Weaving Factory’s Workers‘ in City, Public Space & Body Conference, Goldsmiths, London

Publications:

Cologni, E. (2021) The Body of/at Work, live streaming recording at the Italian Pavilion of LA Biennale di Venezia, https://fb.watch/o1KdPfSJLw/

Cologni, Elena (2023). (Un)Monuments of the Everyday. Marking the Journey from Home to Work through the Experience of Venetian Weaving Factory’s Workers.  AMPS PROCEEDINGS SERIES 32
AMPS, Queen’s University Belfast, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, National University of Singapore. 1-3 Dec, 2022 

 

Updates available at https://www.facebook.com/thebodyofatwork/

Acknowledgements

Collaborations: Padiglione Italia, Biennale Architettura, La Biennale di Venezia; London Festival of Architecture; Laboratorio PRIDE, IR.IDE, Università Iuav di Venezia; Comune di Venezia, Settore Cultura – Biblioteca civica VEZ, Fondo Archivio Giacomelli; Comune di Venezia, Direzione Sviluppo del Territorio e Città Sostenibile AFU – Archivio Fotografico di Urbanistica; Associazione Crespi d’Adda, Comune di Capriate San Gervasio; Comune di Castelvetrano; The Hepworth Collection, UK; Moleskine Foundation Collection; Homerton College, University of Cambridge; East Anglian Film Archive; Luigi Bevilacqua Tessiture; Anemotech theBreath.

The project is funded by: Artist International Development Fund, British Council; Emergency Fund 2020, Arts Council England; A-N Artist Bursary; Faculty of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Anglia Ruskin University. And with the support of Wysing Arts Center.

https://www.comune.venezia.it/content/elena-cologni-pratiche-cura-o-curvare