An exhibition of images and testimonies on places of abandonment at the Trento Civic Gallery

The Galleria Civica di Trento presents from November 20, 2022 to February 26, 2023 the exhibition Paesi perduti. Notes for a Journey into Forgotten Italy, from an idea by Vittorio Sgarbi, curated by Gabriele Lorenzoni.

The exhibition intends to focus on a very topical and urgent issue, such as the complex dynamic that, interweaving anthropological, social and economic factors, leads to theabandonment of large areas of the country, especially mountainous areas far from the main centers and communication routes. The Italian territory is in fact united by the depopulation, with not infrequent cases of abandonment, of large inland areas: extensive areas far from large cities, rail, airport and maritime infrastructures, often characterized by problems of past and present land management. Abandonment manifests itself not only where people no longer reside or reside less, but in all those places where the quality of human relations has been lost and deteriorated to the point of creating dynamics of isolation, loneliness, and disappearance of community.

The exhibition project aims to investigate the complex and multiple forms in which this phenomenon manifests itself: from cases of weakening of the social fabric or deterioration of the relationship between the landscape and the built environment, to cases of true abandonment. Off the official routes there is a network of abandoned lands, countries suspended in another time, black holes on the maps. These are the ghost towns for different causes: natural disasters, low birth rate or because the inhabitants have preferred to move away. Places often put at the center of a trivializing rhetoric, which aims at processes of artificial tourist revitalization without passing through a real awareness of inhabiting and living a territory.

The project will make use of two complementary tools, a video/photographic exhibition that will document places and landscapes of abandonment and their possible rebirth, and a volume that will collect essays and testimonies with the views on the subject of numerous scholars, anthropologists, political scientists, poets, entrepreneurs, and dreamers. A chorus of voices, even dissonant ones from each other, will speak out on this topical and urgent issue. A study day on the topic is planned for February 2023, in collaboration with Tsm|step School for Land and Landscape Governance.

Through photographs by Gabriele Basilico, Silvia Camporesi, Flavio Faganello, Paolo Simonazzi, Italo Zannier and videos by Vittorio De Seta, Franco La Cecla, Patrizia Giancotti the exhibition will document places and landscapes of abandonment; a world of silent villages. Over two hundred photographic shots and four video works will offer a comprehensive view of our country from the 1950s to the present.

In collaboration with Accademia di Belle Arti di Reggio Calabria, Archivio Gabriele Basilico, Archivio Eredi Flavio Faganello, Archivio Italo Zannier, CITRAC, Circolo Trentino per l’Architettura Contemporanea, Farm Cultural Park, Fondazione Antonio Presti, Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna, Museo degli Usi e Costumi della Gente Trentina, Sextantio Onlus, Soprintendenza per i Beni Culturali della Provincia autonoma di Trento, Tsm|step Scuola per il governo del territorio e del paesaggio.

For info: www.mart.trento.it

Hours: Tuesday through Sunday 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 2 to 6 p.m. Closed Mondays.

Tickets: Full 2 euros. Free for Mart Membership and children under 14.

Image: Silvia Camporesi, Veduta - Buonanotte Vecchio (Abruzzo) (2013-2015, from the Atlas Italiae cycle) Courtesy of the artist.

An exhibition of images and testimonies on places of abandonment at the Trento Civic Gallery

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