Workshop in Borca di Cadore – Truth and method of an isolated mind

July the 16th through the 23rd
Curated by: Simone Cametti
Directed to the students of the RUFA Academy of Rome

Training people through relations and direct experience. By using theoretical tools and an approach open to active dialogue and confrontation, this workshop has the aim to lead its pupils to the development of a higher understanding and depth of thought on the usage of the “site specific” artistic practice, learning to face all the theoretical and practical matters which involve it on a relevant level. From being able to adjust the formal perfomance of the piece to its conceptual side, designing an installative project in all its parts, to being able to account its characteristics in the writing of a short synopsis. From doing research on the contents of a location to the adaptation of that experience to one’s own path of artistic research.
The teacher will have the pupils design and develop the pieces inside the Colonia (Eng.: summer camp building) in the former Eni Village of Corte di Cadore; an extraordinary and unique site in Italy, in which the relationship between the strong aspects of the natural landscape and environment fuse together in a spectacular fashion via architecture and practices, keeping the relationship betwen history and action as a focal point.
The workshop will thus be focused on the idea of site specific art, but will favour the most abstract and less tangible side of things, having the pupils interact in a context where thoughts and ideas are the focal point of the finished work, rather than materials.

Benedetto Croce, in his Compendium of Aesthetics, interprets the artwork as a kind of “lyrical intuition”, noticeably set apart from a second phase of its own, which is nothing but its translation into a medium, that is to say a material, physical vessel, part of the world and of one or several techniques.
Then the artwork, from this perspective, is something private, something that happens in the mind of the artist before it takes a shape distinguishable for our senses via its own means.
If Croce speaks of indentity of intuition and expression, it still means the expression not as material means, but as the linguistic shape that the piece inevitably takes in light of its being conceived inside the mind, thus setting this mental medium apart from the material one.

Here a list of the participants:
Sara Carmignani, Elena Castiglia, Priscilla Contesini, Chiara Fantaccione, Alessio Ferri, Bruno Lorenzon, Livia Oliveti, Giulia Saccà, Elisa Selli, Daniele Sciacca.