Florence, new edition of Scripta kicks off, theme is Lifts

Starting Saturday, October 8, and for every Saturday of the month, the cycle of events Scripta returns to Florence . Art in words, a project conceived and directed by Pietro Gaglianò, organized and implemented by the Association “Scripta. L’arte a parole,” with the contribution of the Region of Tuscany "Toscanaincontemporanea2022," the City of Florence, Libreria Brac, in collaboration with ARCI Firenze, publishing house Gli Ori and Villa Romana, and with the media partnership of Nova Radio and Cult Press Agency.

This year’s subtitle, Uplifts, is inspired by the words of art historian Georges Didi-Huberman, in which uplift refers to time, to people, to the momentum of bodies, and to the minds that long for freedom fuel the experience of art and that of learning. Scripta 2022 presents a number of novelties: first, Scripta abandons the definition of “festival,” a now narrow term for a project that aspires to articulate itself, in time and space, over the course of the entire year, with activities focused on educational paths, meetings and debates, book presentations, artwork productions, the formation of new audiences and other encroachments. Scripta also confirms the desire to get out of the monumental center of Florence in meeting with communities in other neighborhoods, where with the tools of art and with the mediation of the historical principals of the Case del Popolo (People’s Houses), workshops, permanent works, and meetings with authors will be carried out.

This year the circles involved, thanks to the collaboration with ARCI Firenze, are four, three in the city and one in the province of Florence: it begins on Saturday, October 8 at the Casa del Popolo in San Niccolò, a historic garrison of a central neighborhood still inhabited by residents, to continue at the Casa del Popolo in Settignano (October 15); on October 22, it moves to the province, to Barberino di Mugello, at the Circolo “Bruno Baldini,” and concludes on October 29 at the SMS in Peretola.

As every year, the Brac Bookstore in Florence, which pioneered the project more than 10 years ago and has grown it with factual and concrete support, will host three events on Oct. 11 and 12 . Also new for 2022 is the Scripta Prize intended for young scholars and scholars and launched with a call last summer. The competition was created as part of the activities that the association “Scripta. Art in Words” addresses the promotion of critical literature and the support of the young generation of professionals in the field of contemporary arts. The prize consists of a scholarship of 2,000 euros and the publication of an essay with the publishing house Gli Ori, which specializes in the languages of art, in the series I limoni.

During Scripta Days on Oct. 11 at the Brac bookstore, the outcome of the announcement will be announced from the forty-seven applications received. The committee is made up of Dario Alì, Rizzoli Education manager and co-founder of “KABUL magazine,” Paolo Gori publisher of Gli Ori, Teresa Macrì, art critic and writer, Raffaella Perna, professor of art history, La Sapienza University, Pietro Gaglianò, art critic and director of Scripta.

The program

It will be Paolo Ciregia, born in Viareggio in 1987, who will be the first artist to unveil his work entitled sanniccolò 33 on Oct. 8 at the Casa del Popolo in San Niccolò, with whose inhabitants the artist has entered into dialogue. Winner in 2020 of the Fabbri Prize in the Contemporary Photography section, he works with a variety of languages and in his work addresses themes related to politics and geopolitics. Heavily influenced by a documentation experience in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict between 2014 and 2015, Ciregia explores the dark side of human nature by resorting to different media such as photography, sculpture, installation and performance. The event is held with the support of Ncontemporary Gallery (Milan-London).

Next, Stefano Chiodi, professor of Contemporary Art History at the University of Rome 3, author of numerous essays and curator of exhibitions, presents his latest book Genius Loci. Anatomy of an Italian Myth, published by Quodlibet: a dense 144-page essay on the notion of “genius loci” as an “imaginary solution to the question of the identity of art produced in Italy.” The book reconstructs a genealogy of the genius loci through certain moments in the Italian story, from the post-unification foundation of a national art history to fascism, from the 1980s to the present day, aiming to provide a reconstruction of its fortune and a new critical reading of it.

The BracBookstore on Via de’ Vagellai will be the venue for the events on Oct. 11 and 12. As every year, the space on Via de’ Vagellai will host the work of an artist. This year it will be Margherita Moscardini, an internationally renowned author, who will create a site-specific intervention: a work connected to the project The Fountains of Za’ atari, which started in 2016 from the Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan. A highly articulated artistic operation, in time, space and means of expression, The Fountains of Za’atari is a single work made up of many actions: it is sculpture, it is reflection on human rights, it is building virtuous economies, it is drawing, it is architecture, and it is also an artist’s book published by Quodlibet that will be presented in bookstores on Oct. 11.

This will be followed by the announcement of the Scripta Prize winner.

OnOct. 12 at 6:30 p.m., also at the Brac, there will be a presentation of Sophie Calle’s True Stories, a volume narrated by Alessandra Mauro, editorial director of Contrasto, who together with publisher Roberto Koch has been animating the publishing house’s catalog for more than 30 years. The meeting is held in collaboration with the Contrasto publishing house, which at the Brac Bookstore is curating the FotoGrafie review. True Stories is the first book by the French artist, photographer and writer to be published in Italian.

Stefano Giuri and Matteo Coluccia are two artists who studied in Florence at the Academy of Fine Arts. They use installation and performance in their works, which focus on memory, collective and individual spaces. At the Casa del Popolo in Settignano on Oct. 15 they will present the fanzine Socccer of their own design. The presentation will be preceded, starting at 5 p.m., by a performance in the form of a soccer tournament, which has the same title as the fanzine, with four teams made up of artists and curators from Bologna, Florence, Livorno and Turin. Each team has been asked to make a banner printed on banners that can serve as a banner. These will remain posted for the duration of the tournament. At the end, taking advantage of a folding system, each banner will become an editorial object, a unique record of what happened on the day. The teams are composed of artists and curators, and mainly the competition is intended to create a moment of sporting and friendly sharing among them.

On Oct. 22 ,Scripta moves to Barberino di Mugello at the Circolo Arci “Bruno Baldini,” where Flavio Favelli, one of Italy’s best-known artists with numerous exhibitions in Italy and abroad to his credit and participation in two Venice Biennales (2003 and 2013), will present his work specially made for the Casa del Popolo.

This will be followed by the presentation of the book Alice Giulia Dal Borgo, Giuseppe Gambazza, Emanuele Garda, Luoghi e comunità. Stories of regeneration, published by Mimesis. The book aims to investigate practices of regeneration of critical spaces and re-signification of places by focusing on four experiences in the Milan area. Underlying these experiences is a strong common trait, represented by the deep commitment and utopian drive that leads communities to revive places. Discussing them will be the three authors: Alice Giulia Dal Borgo (Associate Professor at the Department of Cultural and Environmental Heritage at the University of Milan); Giuseppe Gambazza (Professor of Geography at the Department of Literary, Philological and Linguistic Studies at the University of Milan); Emanuele Garda (researcher in Urban Planning Technique at the Department of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the University of Bergamo).

Oct. 29 concludes the workshops and meetings in the Case del Popolo at SMS Peretola with Marina Arienzale, an artist whose research is based on the individual, both on a personal and private level and on a collective and public level, with an approach somewhere between conceptual and documentary research. At 6:30 p.m. he will unveil his work for the Peretola circle’s premises. This will be followed by the presentation of Invernomuto ’s book Black Med, published by Humboldt books. Black Med is a project started in 2018, based on an ever-evolving archive of music and sound objects from the Mediterranean area; its main manifestation is the platform blackmed.invernomuto.info. The archive collects pieces that tell different diasporic stories and traces; the selection is intentionally non-geographic and contains multiple voices and identities. The book brings together Invernomuto’s theoretical research since the project’s inception and includes an extensive list of external contributions.

All meetings in the people’s houses are preceded by workshops and activities by invited artists.

The activities of Scripta Association. Art in Words, continue in November at the Brac with the program of scripta.edu, meetings dedicated to pedagogy in the arts and theater, among others will be guests Martino Margheri with the magazine Donatello parmi les fauves, a project of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, Rodolfo Sacchettini, with An Inquiry into Theater in Tuscany for/with Children, Boys and Girls, CUE Press 2022, Virgilio Sieni and Delfina Stella with Progettare scalzi, Maschietto editore 2021.

Florence, new edition of Scripta kicks off, theme is Lifts

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