Savona kicks off second Connexxion festival: here's the schedule of exhibitions

From April 20 to 27, 2024, the second part of CONNEXXION - ...to be free. Between Identity and Memory -, the Contemporary Art Diffuse Festival curated by Livia Savorelli and promoted by the Arteam Cultural Association under the patronage of the City of Savona, a candidate city for Italian Capital of Culture 2027. Twelve artists will enliven with site-specific installations and performances three symbolic places in the city of Savona: Piazza Martiri della Libertà, where Agenore Fabbri’s Monument to the Resistance, whose 50th anniversary will be celebrated in 2024, the Priamàr Fortress, with the involvement of an outdoor area, and theformer Sant’Agostino Prison, recovered with a view to urban regeneration. The festival’s title is intended to stimulate a wide-ranging reflection on the concept of freedom, in a world increasingly driven by wars and a heightened drive toward extremism. The former Sant’Agostino Prison was strongly desired by the curator as a space from which to transit for a concluding reflection around the concept of freedom, memory and identity, in order to implement a regeneration that from individual can become collective, accompanying a planning based on culture as a tool to return the good to the city with a renewed functionality. Also continuing, until April 27, 2024, are the two exhibitions inaugurated in the first part of the Festival, in November 2023, on the Priamàr Fortress: the first Fragments. Acts of Preservation for a Future of Freedom, curated by Livia Savorelli and Matteo Galbiati at the Civico Museo Archeologico with works by Roberto Ghezzi, Alberto Gianfreda, Laura Pugno, Attilio Tono, and Ivano Troisi; the second Dialogues around Freedom, curated by Livia Savorelli at the Sandro Pertini Museum and Renata Cuneo with works by Elena Bellantoni, Davide Dormino, Rocco Dubbini, Armida Gandini, and Gianni Moretti.

Produced with the contribution and patronage of the City of Savona, the contribution of the Region of Liguria and the Agostino De Mari Foundation, joined by that of the Industrial Union of the Province of Savona, the second part of CONNEXXION will come to life on April 20, 2024 in Martiri della Libertà Square, with the first of the two Special Projects: the unreleased performance by Silvia Margaria, entitled Bandite. The Festival wanted to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the monument with a performance that stems from an analysis of the rites of commemoration of the fallen of the Resistance. A reflection aimed in particular at some memorial stones present in Albissola Marina, Savona and Vado Ligure and dedicated to Savona’s partisan women - Clelia Corradini, Ines Negri, Franca Lanzone, Paola Garelli, Luigia Comotto - and the role of the “Maria bambina” Sisters of Pietra Ligure. The performance will be preceded by Readings in the Square, by the reading group READING IN A Circle, with the collaboration of Quartiere Oltreletimbro. On April 25, CONNEXXION returns to the Fortezza del Priamàr, on the pedestrian entrance ramp, for the second Special Project of the Festival: Davide Dormino ’s monumental work entitled Semi - placed on the lawn adjacent to the archaeological area outside, in the north front of the fortress. The work, made of raw clay, will be created in a choral and participatory way by the artist assisted by a class from the Istituto Artistico Martini Artistic Institute in the days leading up to April 25. A quote by the Greek poet Dinos Christianopoulos who passed away in 2020 - “They tried to bury us didn’t know we were seeds” - will take shape through 49 letters about 80 cm high and occupy a 7 x 7 meter space. The work, which gives shape to a powerful and ever-present statement related to resistance in a universal sense, also revisits the atavistic rivalry between the Genoese, who built the imposing fortress, and the Savona people. This work is, moreover, inextricably linked to Davide Dormino’s sculpture, selected by curator Livia Savorelli for the exhibition Dialogues around Freedom at the Sandro Pertini and Renata Cuneo Museum, entitled For a Free Look. Two fingers - thumb and index finger life-size - clutch a small seed. The perspective of the work is turned to Ventotene, the place of inspiration for the Ventotene Manifesto, written in 1941 by Altiero Spinelli and Ernesto Rossi during fascist confinement, one of the most beautiful pages of freethought in which they dream of a free and united Europe. On April 20, CONNEXXION moves to the former Sant’Agostino Prison, with a project on the ground floor of the former prison house located in Monticello Square, featuring site-specific installations, performances and talks. Each artist was invited by curator Livia Savorelli to choose one of the cells or common spaces to formulate their own narrative around the three strong themes: freedom, identity and memory. The featured artists at the former Prison are: Alessio Barchitta, Rocco Dubbini, Armida Gandini, Federica Gonnelli, Lorenzo Gnata, Monica Gorini, Carla Iacono, Gianni Moretti, Giulia Nelli, and Filippo Riniolo.

Alessio Barchitta presents two distinct projects: in the Chapel, the installation titled We will go to heaven because in hell we have already been there and, in one of the cells, Heterotopia; Rocco Dubbini has chosen the Interview Room for the installation Dreaming of Smoke, inspired by the iconic pipe of Sandro Pertini, who was imprisoned here in 1925 and 1941, with the many ceramic pipes made thanks to the partnership with the Museum of Ceramics of Savona. In the cell interpreted by Armida Gandini, titled The Number 34 and the Number 27, the suggestion is given by the literary prison, lived and narrated. With Resta ciò che cambia. What changes, remains by Federica Gonnelli instead, two different projects converge in a reflection on indeterminacy. In Lorenzo Gnata’s Tales of Earth, hybrid entities overcome the laws of gravity and reality in a human-vegetal fusion that attempts to stitch up the wounds of a torn era, rapist of every living form, while with the immersive installation The Garden Within. Poetics of Freedom by Monica Gorini, the cell is transformed into a lush garden, in which the prisoner’s mind flourishes and is driven to imagine a tomorrow of freedom. Sad pages of the artist’s personal history are recalled in Carla Iacono’s cell, entitled Education to Memory, while in Giulia Nelli’s cell, with the installation entitled Tu che ne sai, the theme of incommunicability between people, of feeling misunderstood and barricading oneself in one’s interiority, considered a protected and reassuring space in which to spend daily life without real ties to the surrounding territory and social fabric, is addressed.In the inner courtyard of the former prison house, Gianni Moretti presents Anna - Monument to Attention (Promise), a development of the environmental, open and inclusive art intervention of the same name created by the artist in memory of the vicious massacre at Sant’Anna di Stazzema and dedicated to Anna Pardini, the youngest victim who died at only 20 days old: a floor installation that becomes an integral part of the work’s process, dialoguing with it and implementing it with renewed energy from elsewhere. The active participation of the public is accompanied by a promise, within a year, to travel to Sant’Anna di Stazzema to plant it along the mule track for which it was intended. In such a process, as Moretti states, “It is the very body of the user that becomes a place of memory and monument.” Filippo Riniolo presents, in the Chapel of the former prison, the performance Selections, which draws inspiration from the terrible episode of the selection at Auschwitz, narrated by Primo Levi in If This is a Man: in front of a Nazi officer, the prisoners ran while the latter, in a few moments, decided their fate by simply moving to the right or left the card handed to them. A trivial act of bureaucracy that drew the line between life and death to balance the inhumane accounts of the camp. On Sunday, April 21 in the Chapel, there will be a talk Shared practices of contemporary monument construction, moderated by Lisa Parola (art historian and curator of public art projects), with artist Gianni Moretti and art historian Luigi Ficacci.

The Festival benefits from the collaboration of: ANPI (Associazione Nazionale Partigiani d’Italia Comitato Provinciale di Savona), ANED (Associazione Nazionale degli Ex Deportati nei campi Nazi Sezione Savona-Imperia), ISREC (Istituto Storico della Resistenza e dell’Età Contemporanea della provincia di Savona), Museo Casa Natale di Sandro Pertini di Stella San Giovanni (SV), Società Savonese di Storia Patria, Istituto Internazionale di Studi Liguri. Renewed the collaboration with the Museum of Ceramics, a partner in the realization of the workshops developed around the themes of the Festival. For the second part of CONNEXXlON, new partners are also added, testifying to the inclusiveness of the event: Association “A Campanassa,” FAI Youth Group. Savona delegation, reading group LEGGERE IN CERCHIO and Oltreletimbro Neighborhood Committee. CONNEXXION also enjoys the patronage of Hdemia SantaGiulia. The second edition of the Festival, as part of a training internship experience, will benefit from the collaboration of the Students of the Brescia SantaGiulia Academy of Fine Arts, School of Communication and Enhancement of Artistic Heritage of the Department of Communication and Art Didactics.

“With this edition CONNEXXION,” stresses Nicoletta Negro, Councillor for comprensorial policies of Culture and Tourism, “Is consolidated as a project that is an integral part of the administrative action and the path of Capital of Culture. In the second part of the festival the spotlights are turned on two more symbolic places of our city besides the Priamàr Fortress: one forgotten because it has been closed for so many years, and this is the case of the former Sant’Agostino prison, the other experienced by the citizenship probably in a distracted way, but which is rediscovered on the occasion of its 50th anniversary. In both cases contemporary art stimulates us to rediscover the city and reflect on the great themes of Memory and Freedom.”

“The flag has always been representative of an ideology, a belief, a belonging,” explains Livia Savorelli "The artist Silvia Margaria has thus devised a series of flags, one for each partisan, which will be waved with firmness and transport by the flag-wavers of the Castell’Alfero Palio Committee, in a performance in which the flag dance they enact symbolically represents a new process of valuing stories in History, such as those of many women of the Resistance for too long on the margins of the narrative."

“The collaboration with the Municipality of Savona to raise awareness of the former Prison continues while the valorization process is underway thanks to cultural federalism, the procedure that will allow the transfer of ownership of the building to the Municipality so that it can be opened to new functions and redelivered to the community,” says Giovanni Zito, Regional Director of the Liguria Regional Directorate of the State Property Agency.

“CONNEXXION,” stresses Ilaria Becco, “offered us a wonderful opportunity to reopen another place in the city to be regenerated, just as happened last year for the Garbasso tunnel, allowing us to experiment with a temporary use that will serve as a test to imagine the possible uses of the former prison through structural redevelopment thanks to the possibilities offered by federalism of state property. In this path, the ongoing collaboration between the Agenzia del Demanio, the Municipality and the Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio for the provinces of Imperia and Savona is fundamental.”

“For the Superintendency,” says Andrea Canziani, Head of Functional Area IV Architectural Heritage, “Authorizing the use of the former Sant’Agostino Prison as a venue for a contemporary art festival means reaffirming our commitment to the enhancement of cultural heritage and the promotion of the contemporary as a tool for reflection and social transformation. The former prison represents a powerful symbol of redemption and rebirth, a place that, through expressions of contemporary art, is transformed into a living stage for debates on freedom, memory and identity. It is with great enthusiasm that we support this initiative convinced that it can open up new dialogues and connections, returning a renewed and meaningful space to the community.”

Savona kicks off second Connexxion festival: here's the schedule of exhibitions

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.