Pratiche di cure, o del cur(v)are

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Elena Cologni. Pratiche di cura, o del cur(v)are.  curator Gabi Scardi

May 17 – July 4, 2021, Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Palazzetto Tito, Venice

in collaboration with resilient communities, the Italian Pavilion, Biennale of Architecture, La Biennale di Venezia.

ExhibitionGuideCologniBLM-FINAL

selected exhibition shots
Affordances, invito all’uso, installation (2021, 150x400x200 cm)
Affordances, invito all’uso, drawing series (2018, 30×40 cm each )*
Mother Hooks, sculptures series (2020/various sizes)

Untitled (Prop), (2016, 100x100x5 cm / 200×300×2.5 cm)
Untitled (Prop), maket series), (2016, 25x25x3 cm ciascuno / each)
Intraplaces (recording forms), (2017, collage 80×100 cm ciascuno / each)
Untitled (Studies), (2016, 80×100 cm)
339282.580645 Barleycorns Away… (2017, installazione / installation)

Gropius’ Offcuts, sculptural composition (2015, wood+textile. 18 modules: 120 cm, variable hight and width)
Gropius’ Offcuts, (2015, 3 C-Type prints on allumynium, 35 x50 cm)

‘From the Orchard to the Home’, 1930, EAFA Cat. 589, East Anglian Film Archive, University of East Anglia
the images above are by Giorgio Bombieri, Settore Cultura, Comune di Venezia

Lo scarto (touch), (2015, from the series, porcelain)

 

Courtesy Comune di Venezia, Settore Cultura – Biblioteca civica VEZ, Fondo Archivio Giacomelli;

 

from the press release

The exhibition offers a journey through the artistic practice of Cologni starting from series of works – drawings, sculptures, installations and performative choreographies – relating to different moments of her previous research, and to her most recent project specifically created in relation to the Venetian context.

The exhibition project is articulated around a concept dear to the artist: the elaboration of the space of separation; an “intraplace” that unites and separates, which is distance, but also common ground; which is woven with bonds and can be bridged through healing practices.

In fact, Elena Cologni’s work is linked to a marked spatial sensitivity, to the idea of ​​an emotional and social bond, to the awareness of the interdependence between the individual, the community and the environment. More specifically, the artist focuses on the theme of care understood both as a personal relational commitment and in its territorial, historical-social, anthropological and gender dimensions.

Her interventions include an exploration of public and private space starting from historical investigations that in many cases touch on the themes of women’s emancipation in relation to the social and cultural heritage of the past, in this case places for laundry washing. The tendency to carry out participatory actions and to insert works in the public space are expressions of the value that Cologni attributes to collective requests. At the same time, however, the forms of his works, although rooted in physical and social reality, go through a process of reduction, in many cases to the point of abstraction. The recourse to a curved trend, frequent in drawings, sculptures, installations and choreographies of gestures in public space, suggests the need to escape linearity by bringing thought back to the idea of ​​the circle, metaphorically associated with ideas of equity, of participation , of continuity.

The exhibition Elena Cologni. Practices of care. On finding the cur(v)e is alive with different references. On the one hand it is rooted in the history of twentieth century art: there is a direct reference to Barbara Hepworth, who in 1950 took part in the British Pavilion of the Biennale d’Arte and who leaves observations of people in Piazza San Marco, which Cologni sees an antecedent of her choreographed exercises. On the other hand, the artist connects to the Venetian social context of which she investigates traditional crafts in danger of extinction and everyday work environments in order to understand the relationship between domestic space and work space.

The exhibition serves as a reference point for a series of events in Italy and abroad planned during the opening months, as detailed here The Body of/at Work

In Venice:

  • 5 June: The Body of/at Work, experiential exercises part of resilient communities Padiglione Italia, 17th Biennale di Architettura 2021, La Biennale di Venezia
  • 18 May – 3 July: The Body of/at Work experiential exercises with dialogic sculptures in the city

In London:

  • 24 June: Care(less). On invisibility; 25 June: Care(less). On forgetting; 26 June: Care(less). On discarding, are part of the London Festival of Architecture

Live streaming and updates available at https://www.facebook.com/thebodyofatwork/

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 Municipalita’ di Casteverano; 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.

* Affordances, invito all’uso, drawing series (2018, 30×40 cm each ) was shown in PARALLEL LINES: Drawing and Sculpture, group show curators Jo Baring and Caroline Worthington (The Ingram Collection + Royal Society of Sculptors), 22 June – 25 August 2019, The Lightbox, Woking (UK)

CARE is RELATIONAL

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The project ‘CARE: from periphery to centre’, combining commissioned, site specific art and material from the College Archive, was exhibited at Homerton College of the University of Cambridge between 15 and 28 October 2018. Part of the project remains permanently installed in the college, part is looked after in the college archive, and part is in the Moleskine Foundation Art Collection here .

It was discussed in an interview from 2019 with Ayla Van Der Boor in the context of the University of Utrecht’s managed Care Ethics Consortium (available here). Part of this is published in a limited edition catalogue CARE: from periphery to centre. Elena Cologni, with texts by historian of science Melanie Keene, educationalist Peter Cunningham, curator Gabi Scardi and care ethicist Virginia Held (here is the digital version of the catalogue)

The project highlighted Maud Cloudesley Brereton (formerly Maud Horobin, lecturer and Acting Principal, 1903), and Leah Manning (student 1906-08) as figures of international importance representing Homerton’s historic concern with and contributions to health, well-being, and education. A display of relevant items gave a snapshot of early 20th-century life in the College, while focusing on practices of care in society and in students’ learning, through subjects such as domestic studies, medicine, health, and physical education. These themes underpin my sculptural installation designed in response to the 1914 Ibberson Gymnasium (now the Combination Room), and echoed in the Queen’s Wing glass corridor and lawn.

During the exhibition the public was be able to attend the following accompanying events as part of Homerton 250 and the Cambridge Festival of Ideas:

Monday, 15 October: Tour and public opening of the installation, with artist Elena Cologni.

Wednesday, 17 October, 5.30-7.30PM: Workshop with artist Elena Cologni – CARE: Connecting Experiences

Friday, 19 October: Talk and workshop at Gibberd Art Gallery, Harlow

Sunday, 21 October, 2.00-5.30PM: Symposium – CARE: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives

This event featured two panels on CARE in the early 20th century and CARE today. The first welcomed Peter Cunningham (Homerton College), Francesca Moore (Homerotn College), and Jessica Meyer (Leeds), and was chaired by Melanie Keene (Homerton College). The second was chaired by Philip Stephenson (Homerton College), and featured Elena Cologni, Gabi Scardi (Università Cattolica di Milano), and Peggy Watson (Homerton College).

Saturday, 27 October: Homerton 250 Festival, including a tour of the installation with artist Elena Cologni, and an opportunity to meet Archivist Svetlana Paterson.

 

RELATIONS OF CARE, ELENA COLOGNI (2018, PAIR OF MOBILE SCULPTURES, STEEL RODS, JUTE ROPES, 2.5 X 2.5 X 2 METRES EACH). Photographs courtesy of ARTUK.org. These are now on display on a permanent basis.

Care Proximities, Elena Cologni, installation view in front of the Ibberson Building, Homerton College, University of Cambridge (2018, installation including two sculptures and drawing on college lawn: wood + lawn marking paint, 20x100x0.5 meters)

Care Support, Elena Cologni, installation view in the Queen’s Wing veranda housing the new gym, Homerton College, University of Cambridge (2018/19, installation including three sculptures and frames: steel,  2.40×0.5×20 meters)

Documentation of the project, and presentation at Gibberd Gallery, Harlow (2018).

 

Mother’s Tools, (2018, compositions of 4: wood, steel, custom-made fabric labels, printing tools from the artists’ mother’s embroidery kit,  20 x 20 x 4 cm each). The labels read: CARE AS SUPPORT, RESPONSIVENESS TO NEED, PERSONS ARE RELATIONAL, UBUNTU.

Care Notes (motherhood), 2018, detail, graphite prints, pencil, laser print on paper on Moleskine Japanese album, with inserts of fabric. designs from the Architectural Review magazine, June 1939, 21cmX 120 cm).

Care Notes (architecture), 2018, detail, graphite prints, pencil, laser print on paper on Moleskine Japanese album, with inserts of fabric. designs from the Architectural Review magazine, June 1939, 21cmX 120 cm). Courtesy of Moleskin Art Collection.

 

Care Is Relational, and Care Instructions, (2018, 2 from series of woven labels, the first of which is inspired by Virginia Held’s writings, and the latter by Maud Brereton’s revolutionary position at the time, that domestic labour should be paid)

 

The above were produced in the project CARE: from periphery to centre, 2018

in collaboration with:

Virginia Held (philosopher, New York City University)

Gabi Scardi (Curator and Author, Milan Italy)

THE 250 ARCHIVE WORKING GROUP

Peter Cunningham (educationalist and social historian) Melanie Keene (historian of science) Svetlana Paterson (archivist)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

University College London Library; Cambridge University Library; The Harlow Art Trust: Gibberd Gallery, Harlow. The project is part of Cambridge Festival of Ideas, was commissioned by Homerton College, and is kindly supported by the Moleskine Foundation.

…AND ENCOUNTER

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…AND ENCOUNTER

by Elena Cologni

curator Eliza Gluckman, assistants Maria Azcoitia and Seana Wilson

Women’s Art Collection (then New Hall Art Collection) at Murray Edwards College of the University of Cambridge

20 October 2017- 7th of January 2018

This was one of the outcomes of the project Seeds of Attachment developed in collaboration with  Prof Susan Golombok, then Director of the Centre for Family Research, University of Cambridge, and Dr Robbie Duschinsky Head of the Applied Social Science Group, University of Cambridge.

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Exhibition view 

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Margaret Lowenfeld Mosaic Test
Box (1938) book and record forms (1954)
Courtesy Margaret Lowenfeld Library, Centre for Family Research, University of Cambridge 

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339282.580645 Barleycorns Away… 
Installation: collages on paper, wooded shelves and fabric

Untitled (Prop) , Plywood and fabric, 100 x 100 x 2 cm closed / 200×300 cm open 

During a residency at the Margaret Lowenfeld Library, Centre for Family Research University of Cambridge, to devise a strategy for engagement, artist Elena Cologni developed a nomadic and dialogic sculpture inspired by the Margaret Lowenfeld’s Mosaic Test box and related book (1954). The prop was used in a series of encounters in the city over the period of a year under the umbrella project Seeds of Attachment.

The exhibition … And Encounter marks the conclusion of the project in the UK, and includes the sculpture, together with traces of the process in the form of drawings, collages, and constructions.

Cologni’s artistic research and interdisciplinary approach explored the bond between parent and child, in relation to the experience of place attachment.

While Cologni set out to investigate the emotional, psycho-geographical condition of motherhood, the work also highlighted the crucial role of non-linguistic forms of dialogue at the core of processes of identity construction, and in relation to place.

The exhibition includes traces of the process adopted by the artist and the nomadic dialogic sculpture inspired by the Margaret Lowenfeld’s Mosaic Test box and book (1954), also on view, courtesy of the Lowenfeld Library, Centre for Family Research, University of Cambridge. The prop was used in a series of encounters in the city over the period of a year under the umbrella project ‘Seeds of Attachment‘.

Also New Hall Collection Curator Eliza Gluckman oversaw Assistant Curators Maria Azcoitia and Seana Wilson selecting works from the collection, specifically to contextualise Cologni’s project into ecofeminism. Looking to ideas of ecology, the mother, place and identity, on display are pieces by Monica Sjoo, Judith Tucker,  Mary Cassatt, Celia Paul.

Further material: video essay by Cologni on research background here  and 8 minutes interview with Phil Sansom  here

Exhibition events include

Nomadic and Dialogic: Art and Ecofeminism, New Hall Collection at Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge

20 October 2017

The round table, part of the Festival of Ideas in Cambridge , was chaired by New Hall Curator Eliza Gluckman, with artist Elena Cologni, author Susan Buckingham and Murray Edwards’ fellow Jenny Bavidge. It positions motherhood in relation to ecofeminism, ‘deep’ environmentalism, the caring role devalued in neo-liberal societies, to discuss the space between us, inter-corporeal space, micropolitics and haptic communication. (Edited video recording available here)

Attachment & Intraplaces: Discussing a Nomadic and Dialogic Approach in Spatialized Art Practice, Freud Museum, London

Artist Talk by Elena Cologni introduced by Curator Jamie Reurs on 21 January, 2018

Plate No. 11, Elena Cologni (2017/18), from the series Intraplaces

On the research background of Cologni’s artistic project Seeds of Attachment, which looks into the attachment between parent and child (Ainsworth, 1973; Bowlby, 1969; Freud, A.,1967) as crucial to place attachment (Seamon, D., 2013). We get attached to a place through our attachment to our family (Gordon Jack, 2010), but how troubling can it be to be detached from a place and our loved ones (Bowlby, 1998)?

Cologni attempts to investigate this through the adoption of a nomadic (Braidotti) and dialogic sculpture though a non-verbal approach, she designed based on the principles of the Margaret Lowenfeld Mosaic Box (1954). Aspects of this process were exhibited at New Hall Art Collection at Murray Edwards College of the University of Cambridge, for which she developed the series ‘Intraplaces’.

 

Intraplaces: Dialogues without words, Freud Museum, London

Elena Cologni facilitates an active engagement, followed by a discussion with ecofeminist geographer Susan Buckingham, 15 September 2018

Cologni has previously discussed at the Freud Museum the research background of her artistic project ‘Seeds of Attachment’ (2016/18), looking into the attachment between parent and child (Freud, A.,1967; Ainsworth, 1973; Bowlby, 1969) as crucial to place attachment (Seamon, D., 2013). Cologni brings the dialogic sculpture into the museums gardens to facilitate its activation with participants and to discuss its possible implications with Buckingham. This is done by considering issues of ecology, feminism and place, ad to ground the definition of ‘Intraplaces’.

The active engagement at the Freud Museum concludes a series of encounters in London’s public spaces, the implications of which are then discussed with author Susan Buckingham, whose research and publications address gender and environmental issues.

Museum Curator Jamie Reurs wrote:

Seeds of Attachment is timely because it transcends the difficulties and bypasses issues of misunderstanding. The artwork seems to acknowledge the gendered nature of language by accenting a different way of bonding. We are not bound to the rules of language, we are not limited by culture or geography. Language can be linked to a geographical place or a certain culture and, as we have seen, it is limited by the gendered social order. This detail of Seeds of Attachment, seemingly minute is representative of major themes in the work.

Seeds of Attachment, humble in its make-up, is a sophisticated example of the visual arts transcending the confines of language. It possesses a universality that transgresses the social order and the gender bias of this discourse. It is capable of evoking more than what is said, written, emailed or texted. Instead, you feel it, you experience it, and it is liberating.

Relevant background

Cologni’s in(ter)disciplinary research approach with a consistent interest in artist/audience/participant relational and perceptual dynamics has been centered around memory in the present for sometime, and in collaboration with academics (psychology, philosophy, cognitive science). Relevant projects include Present Memory and Liveness in Delivery and Reception of Video Documentation During Perfornance Art Events (AHRC funded 2004/06) in collaboration with Thomas Suddendorf, on ideas of mirror self-recognition using video delays; based on same issues, RE-MOVED, Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow (ACE funded 2008); GEOMEMOS, Yorkshire Scukpture Park (ACE 2009); rockfluid in collaboration with Prof Lisa Saksida, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, when a more specific interest in place in relation to memory is addressed, including the live installation Spa(e)cious (Wysing Arts Centre, MK Gallery, Bergamo Scienza) related to James Williams’ concept of Specious Present (various Arts Council England grants 2011/); more recently Lived Dialectics, Movement and Rest at MuseumsQuartier in Vienna, was developed in dialogue with David Seamon and on place attachment (discussed at the Leonardo Laser series of talks in London).

prizes 

The ROYAL SOCIETY FOR PUBLIC HEALTH (RSPH) in collaboration with the Royal Society of Sculptors awards Elena Cologni with the fist prize of ‘The Shape of the Public’s Health’ (2019) for the sculpture untitled (prop) in Seeds of Attachment !!!, details in the link

Dr Ranjita Dhital, Committee member of the RSPH Arts, Health and Wellbeing Special Interest Group states:

‘Elena Cologni’s award winning sculpture Prop, seeds of attachment expresses the importance of space in public health. Particularly spaces which promotes meaningful communication about both the physical and emotional aspects of health. The vibrant purple and its soft sheen fabric are inviting and draws you into its positive energy.’

exhibitions

Project statements section show in PARALLEL VIENNA Sept. 24th–29th curated by Gulsen Bal and Walter Seidl Open Space, Vienna

‘The Shape of the Public’s Health’ prize show at ROYAL SOCIETY FOR PUBLIC HEALTH with the other shortlisted artists including Steve Hines and Lucy Glenndining, details in the link

PARALLEL LINES: Drawing and Sculpture, group show curators Jo Baring and Caroline Worthington (The Ingram Collection + Royal Society of Sculptors), 22 June – 25 August 2019, The Lightbox, Woking.

conferences/presentations/workshops 

On Care, And Finding The Cur(V)E. A Geography of Difference Through Caring, performance, in Ecologies of Care: Feminist Activism panel curator Basia Sliwinskal, 108TH CAA ANNUAL CONFERENCE, Chicago, February 12–15, 2020

On Care, and Finding the Cur(v)e. A Geometry of Difference Through Caring, two-part workshop in The Paradox European Fine Art Biennial forum Art Future / Future Signs 2019 in Riga, Latvia, program

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many thanks to Prof Susan Golombok Director Centre for Family Research, University of Cambridge, and Dr Robbie Duschinsky Head of the Applied Social Science Group, University of Cambridge, who supported and advised on the scientific aspect of the project. Thanks to New Hall Collection Curator Eliza Gluckman for her incredible support, Maria and Seanna, and the participants for having entrusted the artist with their invaluable input.

‘Seeds of Attachment’ is funded by Grants for the Arts, Arts Council England.
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It was supported by Art Language Location, Anglia Ruskin University; Lowenfeld Library, Centre for Family Research University of Cambridge; New Hall Collection at Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge; Eleanor Glanville Research Centre, University of Lincoln; Freud Museum London.

 

images courtesy of New Hall Collection at Murray Edwards College of the University of Cambridge, and the Margaret Lowenfeld Library, Centre for Family Research, University of Cambridge

LO SCARTO

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LO SCARTO

‘We tend to go through places without inhabiting them. The project tries to offer people the opportunity to understand that the space between us, as well as that around us, and its history belong to us, even if we inhabit them only for a short amount of time. The awareness of one’s own identity in relation to one’s own place must be cherished and nurtured’ .

Elena

http://rockfluid.com/wp-content/uploads/20150414_160937web.jpg

40 sculptures for hands (7 x 12/15 cm) + 10 drawings (28 x 35 cm)  + 10 wooden studs (240 x 6 x 4 cm) + workshops

   

 

more details here

related publication

Cologni, E., ‘Reciprocal Maieutics: An Approach For The Artist As Interface In Intercultural Society’ (2015), in International Handbook of Intercultural Arts Research, London, New York, Routledge Publishing

 

Acknowledgements. Funded by Unesco and European funding through IArt, supported by: CLAC, Museo Civico Selinuntino and Comune of Castelvetrano Selinunte, CRESM, Belice Epicentro della Memoria Viva Gibellina, la Rete Museale e Naturale Belicina, Liceo Classico Giovanni Pantaleo and the ‘Akkademia del Teatro Selinus, as well as all people who gave their time, passion, dedication, culture and experience thus activating the exchange vital for the realization of the project

GEOMEMOS

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GEOMEMOS

is the outcome of a residency at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in 2009. The resulting drawings and related sculptures are based on various maps of the place, and mark the process to devise a route for the performance journey and those elements brought into the conversation, to generate an overlapping of physical and conceptual contexts. The one to one performances can therefore also be seen as the act of drawing in the landscape as artist and audience move through it. More details here.

 

Conversation drawings: possibilities, (graphite on paper, 35×50 cms)

stills form video documentation
Conversations (open) (series of 10, graphite on paper, 60 x 80 cms)
Conversations (open), balsa wood (series of 10, 6 x 15 cms)

Acknowledgements. Many Thanks to Oliver Brown for liaising with the participants and supporting the project throughout; to the participants: Anna, Angie, Alan, Jo, John, Jeremy, Lesley, Lewis, Libby, Sally; rickshaw: Francis.

Geomemos was awarded the Grants for the Arts and  supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, the Heritage Lottery Fund, York Saint John University and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

 

RE-MOVED

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RE-MOVED

2008, Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow international 08, Glasgow

director Francis McKee

The installation was developed through the Creative Lab Residency (2006) and tested through open studios. Visitors were invited to engage with her through a one-to-one installation in which the audience actively participated in the construction of the work’s meaning, generating a collection of video portraits. This is a two way corridor structure for a one-to-one mediatised performative installation designed as a site specific by making sense of the history of the place and people it is presented to. The work’s meaning is constructed together with the audience’s participation in it. With the use of archival footage and video delays, it tries to capture people’s moment of self-awareness in the present, here constructed as layers of representation of time.

‘When we think of the present as what ought to be, it is no longer, and when we think of it as existing, it is already past…all perception is already memory’ (Henry Bergson, Matièr et mémoire, 166-167)

The work was based on research on the redevelopment of areas where once the Tenements Houses stood, the Gorbals area of Glasgow. They were taken down in the 80’s causing a tear in the city and collective memory. The research was carried out at the Scottish Screen Archive and Peoples Palace, were the installation was initially thought to be placed.

The final installation was presented at the Centre for Contemporary Art, part of the biannual Glasgow international 08, directed by Francis McKee

Structure and piece for CCA. The two way corridor structure shown in the pictures is for a one-to-one mediatised performative installation and is designed as a site specific by making sense of the history of the place and people it is presented to. The work’s meaning is constructed together with the audience’s participation in it.  The interaction over a period of 3 days and the information recorded and played back. These will be between 12-1, 2-3, 4-5, 6-7, allowing for 4 people per hour (booking organised accordingly). The environment is an mdf/wood structure. Two small corridors of 1 x 2 mts each (2 mts high), the partition in the middle would have to raised from the floor of a couple of centimeters to allow for cabling to go through. The two corridors are: one for myself and one for a member of the public. We were sited in front of a screen connected to a camera recording and playing back our own delayed mirror image. At times this was  interfered by selected footage about collapsing/rising buildings in Glasgow (National Library of Scotland and Scottish Screen Archive kindly provided video footage).

During the dialogue with a member of public I asked questions such as: what is memory? what are you looking at now? and they overlapped aspects of the past with their experience of the present.

Technical. The following equipment were used: 2 video cameras (high definition minidv), 2 monitors, 2 video delay systems, 1 dvr, 1 video switch, 1 video splitter. Microphones to record to cameras.

(installation view, stills from Scottish Screen Archive footage and video of participants)

“The recent experimentation of gaps, scotoma (in the visual field), apnea (of breathing), amnesia (gap in memory), time-gap (transmission), is introduced to allow the audience to participate in the event because, just like a spot on a blank page, we/audience fill it in with our brain/life experience/imagination. Process which, if contextualised in relation to the Baudrillian concept of punctum and the perceptual Kaniza effect (a perceptual gap is where the eye goes to compensate for a loss): it enables me to define a strategy for the creative process in which the designed perceptual lacuna asks to be filled in by audiences.  These are adopted, implied and experienced in my work in relation to the condition within which they happen: in liveness as site for continuous present, where performance art and live installation interchange take place. I specifically use various digital technologies postulating that continuous present can be constructed by perceiving reality as collapsed layers of its representations and time (i.e.: memory, live documentation). In the Mnemonic Present series, Apnea and Re-Moved for example making the audience aware of the passing of time as they are experiencing it (time gap in video), by being faced with an element of past experience in the present, allowed them to participate in its construction; this also mirrors the everyday life condition of relating to the world by referring to our memory archive in the perception of reality, and ourselves, in any given moment.”

(from Cologni E, That spot in the ‘moving picture’ is you, (perception in time-based art), in Blood, Sweat & Theory: Research through Practice in Performance  ed. John Freeman, Libri Publishing, London, 2010, pp. 83-107)

 

further documentation

http://www.gsa.ac.uk/research/contemporary-art-curating/the-glasgow-miracle-materials-towards-alternative-histories/

http://www.glasgowmiraclearchives.org/individual/elena-cologni/

About Glasgow International

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

 

DIAGRAMMI

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DIAGRAMMI

1999, participatory action, live broadcast, Oreste, Venice Biennale

THE PIECE

extract from accompanying booklet:

To introduce the meaning of the today’s event, 3rd of July 1999 as part of the Oreste program at the 48th Venice Biennal, I will mention a few points, instruments of creativity and thinking.

“I see only from one point, but in my existence I am looked at from all sides” Jacques Lacan

Visual models often used in research to clarify or synthesise a particular theory, or define a method, are particularly useful in my own artistic practice.

The diagram that I refer to, comes from a drawing that I made in 1996. On images coming from memory and contexts in which I had lived.

The newly developed model for this performance, is not fixed in the past, instead refers to a continuous present time and to myself constantly changing context in which the I (=personal identity) meets the me (=other’s perspective and social identity). The passing of time effects the I as much as the me and the context itself, therefore the terms of the relation are also constantly readdressed.

The diagram is very simple to read: there is myself in the centre and has to do with my own position relating to a specific context, in and outside of Italy (my country of origin). It refers to a continuous repositioning of myself within the contexts.  This dynamic generates an always new relation within the communication schema.

PREFACE

  • communication between people depends on codes of the context in which they meet
  • communication is not possible if the code is not shared by everybody
  • communication is possible if the barriers are removed
  • by creating a virtual context is possible to remove social barriers

“ …the me represents a person’s social identity, constituted in social interaction and shaped under the influence of social norms and public requirements with respect to behaviour.

The I on the other hand stands for one’s personal  identity , whose origin and development cannot be explained solely on the basis of experiences in social interaction, and which is subject to the anarchic spontaneity and creativity of a single identity.”

George Herbert Mead

Audience: people I met during my lifetime.

  INTENTIONS 

  1. to remove our perception of each other based on assumptions that we made when met in a particular context, according to a particular role.
  2. to create a new context in which to exchange messages and therefore communicate to people who I met in the past in a different context.
  3. the use of words within social and cultural codes, has to show the poietic dimension and become instrument in the operation of loss of social norms let the personal identity emerge.

Cologni, E. (1999) Diagrammi, notes. Artist book (limited edition)

CONTEXT

Oreste was not a group producing collective artworks, nor a not-for-profit organization. It was a variable set of persons, mostly Italian artists, who have been working together with the aim of creating spaces of freedom for ideas, inventions, and projects.

During the 48th Venice Biennale, from June 10th through November 7th 1999, on the occasion of an invitation by Szeeman  to the exhibition dAPERTutto, Oreste set up an ongoing program of meetings, interactive performances, round table discussions, lectures, lunches and informal encounters. Almost one hundred events were organized, and more than five hundred people from the whole world took an active role in the project.

Progetto Oreste

PUBLICATIONS

Cologni, E., ‘Institutions in Great Britain: Artist as Researcher. Diagrams’, Oreste at the Venice Biennale, AAVV, Charta, Milan 2000

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Oreste collective, University of the Arts, London, Central Saint Martins Former Head of Research Malcolm LeGrice, Mariagrazia and Simon