CONNECTION. The Savona contemporary art festival: programme

The artists called to interpret the theme of the second part of CONNECTION, a widespread contemporary art festival that invites us to reflect on the concept of freedom. Against nationalism, authoritarian tendencies and wars “…to be free. Between identity and memory”, the exhibition intends to offer, from 20 to 27 April 2024 in Savona (candidate for Italian Capital of Culture 2027), opportunities for exchange on the topic so that it is possible to implement collective regeneration thanks also, and above all, to cultural practices.

CONNECTION. The festival spread across the symbolic places of Savona

Between performances, exhibitions, talks, workshops and site-specific installations, the event curated by Livia Savorelli involves the symbolic places of the city, including theformer Sant’Agostino Prison recovered with a view to urban regeneration, Martyrs of Freedom Square – where is the Monument to the Resistance by Agenore Fabbriwhich turns 50 this year – and the Priamàr Fortressalready present in the first part of the festival held in November 2023. “In the second part of the festival the spotlights are turned on two further symbolic places of our city in addition to the Priamàr Fortress: one forgotten because it has been closed for many years, and this is the case of the former Sant’Agostino prison, the other probably experienced by the citizens in a distracted way, but which is rediscovered on the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary. In both cases, contemporary art stimulates us to rediscover the city and reflect on the great themes of memory and freedom”, he declares Nicoletta NegroCouncilor for the district policies of Culture and Tourism to which he is added Andrea CanzianiHead of Functional Area IV Architectural Heritage, who tells how “authorizing the use of the former Sant’Agostino prison as a venue for a contemporary art festival means reaffirming the commitment to the valorisation of cultural heritage and the promotion of the contemporary as a tool for reflection and social transformation”.

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CONNEXXION in Savona. The special projects during the festival

Silvia Margaria and Davide Dormino are artists special projects proposed for this edition of the festival which opens on Saturday 20 April in Piazza Martiri della Libertà. Right here, in front of Agenore Fabbri’s Resistance Monument, Margaria will present the new performance Banished, created in collaboration with ANPI and the “A Campanassa” Association, as well as the participation of the flag-wavers of the Palio Castell’Alfero (AT) Committee. “The flag has always been representative of an ideology, a belief, a belonging. The artist has thus created a series of flags, one for each partisan, which will be waved firmly and passionately by the flag-wavers of the Palio Castell’Alfero Committee, in a performance in which the flag dance they perform symbolically represents a new process of valorising stories in history, such as those of many women of the Resistance who have been on the margins of the story for too long”, explains the curator Livia Savorelli. The act arises from an analysis of the commemoration rites of the fallen of the Resistance which are practiced in front of the memorial stones present in Albissola Marina, Savona and Vado Ligure and dedicated to Clelia Corradini, Ines Negri, Franca Lanzone, Paola Garelli, Luigia Comotto and to the “Mary Child” Sisters of Pietra Ligure.

CONNEXXION in Savona. Davide Dormino’s installation

The second special project is by Davide Dormino, a monumental work in raw clay installed on the pedestrian entrance ramp of the Priamàr Fortress and entitled Seeds. The work will be created by the artist through a choral and participatory action thanks to a three-day workshop (before April 25th) – in collaboration with the Savona Ceramics Museum – in which students from a class of the Artistic Institute will participate Arturo Martini. The installation takes up a phrase from the Greek poet Dinos Christianopoulos, who recently passed away, through 49 letters of approximately 80 cm, occupying a space of 7 meters by 7: “They tried to bury us they didn’t know we were seeds”.

Caterina Angelucci

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