Supernova invites you on the 12th of September at 18:30 to the opening of Arturo Herrera’s personal exhibition “Fare un giro”, curated by Allegra Pesenti.

Arturo Herrera applies modernist strategies of fragmentation and repetition in work that confronts the legacy of abstraction with the art of collage. For ‘Fare un giro’, the artist has chosen to activate the Supernova space on Piazza di S. Maria in Trastevere in Rome with a focused selection of serial and individual works that combine past and present, and emphasize the physicality of materials both within and around the works themselves.

The subtle juxtaposition of realities in Herrera’s visual language are drawn from his extraordinary archive of found imagery. Two series on view for the first time in this exhibition were produced during the artist’s residency at the American Academy in Rome between September and November, 2023. ‘Fare un giro’, which translates loosely to ‘going for a wander,’ references Italian sites and cities in a presentation that is specific to space and place. Within the installation, photographic reproductions of ancient statuary and Etruscan tombs collide with a magnified image of the Gazzetta dello Sport – the daily newspaper with sports coverage that is instantly recognizable for its pink pages and has the largest readership in Italy.

Herrera’s works span from miniature to monumental, and from flat surfaces in traditional collages to dimensional sculptural compositions and assemblages. Found objects are incorporated into his forms in works such as ‘Bang and Untitled’, a large monochromatic sheet of cut felt that falls from the wall. “There is an interplay between the found object and its link to everyday cultural sources that reflects the contaminated aspect of today‘s abstraction” explains Herrera.

A stand-apart element of the installation at Supernova is the wallpaper of a forest that represents a more anonymous and transportive state. This encompassing scene proposes a pause within the urban and cultural environments on the artist’s giro. “The visitor is invited to take his or her own tour into the artist’s constructed compositions that propose layered readings and associations” says curator Allegra Pesenti, “in a body of work that redefines the nature and impact of the collage form.” Fare un giro is Arturo Herrera’s first and long awaited exhibition in Rome.

A limited edition postcard by Arturo Herrera is available for purchase at Supernova, with the proceeds going to the local Community of Sant’Egidio.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Arturo Herrera was born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1959. Over the last 20 years, he has developed an internationally celebrated and multi-layered body of work which spans from collages and felt sculpture to large-scaled public commissions and wall paintings. Herrera’s art straddles between figuration and abstraction and is notable for the positioning of found images within ambiguous contexts.

Herrera’s work is featured in the collections of acclaimed institutions world-wide including San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco CA; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago IL; Museum of Modern Art, New York NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York NY; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles CA; Tate Modern, London UK; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, Germany; and Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid. His work appeared in the 2002 Whitney Biennial, and has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions, the most recent of which was You are here, Site Santa Fe, NM (2024). He has been the recipient of many awards including a Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD) Fellowship and The Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. In 2023, Herrera was the Deenie Yudell Resident in the Visual Arts at the American Academy in Rome. He currently lives and works in Berlin.

CURATOR’S BIOGRAPHY
A native of Milan, Allegra Pesenti received her PhD from the Courtauld Institute of Art in London and specialised in the study of works on paper. She joined the drawings department of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles in 1999, and the Grunwald Center for Graphic Arts at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles in 2007. Allegra was hired as Chief Curator of the Menil Drawing Institute in Houston in 2013, and she re-joined the Hammer Museum as associate director and senior curator in 2016. She currently works as an independent curator based in Rome.

PERFORMANCE AND IT’S DECLINATIONS

Performances never rest, and their variations never stop evolving. Following Dr. Brown’s introduction to contemporary clowning we will be hosting an open doors lab show in which three actors come together to capture the audiences’s attention, bringing the piazza indoors and leaving them with an unforgettable experience. Just as Philippe Gaulier has trained talents such as Philip Burgers and Lucy Hopkins, whom we will soon meet here at Supernova, Philip has taught many other performers like Maya Ricote, Andy Duncan, and Cam Porter what to invent. Here they are, ready to share the stage with each other and, most importantly, with you in a show created exclusively for Supernova as part of the “Performance and its Declinations” project, initiated this week and curated by Diego Borella. This journey has just begun and is eager to grow and push your curiosity more and more.

CAM

Cam Porter is a comedian from Los Angeles and a recent graduate of the École Philippe Gaulier. He has appeared as a mime in HBO’s Silicon Valley and as a human fountain on America’s Got Talent.

MAYA

Maya Ricote, a Latin American actress, singer, and improviser turned clown, was previously a student at the École Philippe Gaulier. She is now preparing a clown show for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

ANDY

Andy began his career with his brother as “The Duncan Brothers.” After various workshops with Dr. Brown, they created successful shows such as “Legs,” “Logs,” and “Jeremy Segway,” enjoying great success at various festivals and theatres in the UK.

PERFORMANCE AND ITS DECLINATIONS

Supernova has decided to explore and share with its audience an artistic form not yet widely popular in Italy. Known in English as stage performance or contemporary clowning, this is a unique way of being on stage and engaging with the audience. Its history traces back from street theatre to the circus, leading to Jacques Lecoq and his academy, Marcel Marceau, and several other great artists, actors, and performers. But forget the red noses and colorful balloons; here we are talking about pure stage magic, an organic meeting between artists and the audience, which is the foundation of true theatre.

This form of performance has now taken over theatres and festivals worldwide, from the Soho Theatre in London to venues in New York, Australia, and other countries with a more vibrant approach to stage experimentation. One of the most renowned schools globally is Philippe Gaulier’s in Paris. Among the many talents that have emerged from this school, Lucy Hopkins and Philip Burgers (also known as Doctor Brown) deserve special mention.

After winning the Best Show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2012, Doctor Brown has never stopped performing, experimenting, and sharing his art, becoming a traveling sold-out artist worldwide.

To inaugurate this new series of stage experiences, Supernova has chosen Doctor Brown to kick off the events. You are invited on the 10th and 11th of July to attend his performances of “Bedfrdfgth” and “Beturns.”

Doctor Brown will also host a workshop on contemporary clowning on the 11th during the day at Supernova.

These three events mark the beginning of a long and well-curated series of upcoming shows, experimental workshops, gatherings, and more.

This is just the start of “Performance and it’s Declinations,” curated by Diego Borella. Using Supernova as our base camp, we aim to introduce this unique way of performing and living the stage to all kinds of audiences and in all kinds of situations. More news will follow soon.

Program:

July 10th: “Dr. Brown Befrdrgth” at 8:30 PM

July 11th: Workshop at 11 am: “Clowning with Dr. Brown-ing, finding vulnerability and stupidity on stage”

“Dr. Brown Beturns” at 8:30 pm

Biography:

Philip Burgers, in the role of Doctor Brown, has won numerous awards for his live performances, including the award for the best comedy show at both the Edinburgh and Melbourne International Festival Awards. This success brought Burgers to Channel 4 with The Dr. Brown Show through the channel’s Comedy Blaps. In 2014, Burgers brought Dr. Brown The Bexperiment to the Soho Theatre, where he also collaborated with Sam Simmons in Ceremony.

Supernova invites you on July 4th to the photography exhibition “Beyond the Ordinary.”

The exhibition, in addition to promoting our passion for photography, has the concrete goal of raising funds for the Community of Sant’Egidio, to support projects assisting the poor and promoting peace.

For friends who visit us at the inauguration, there will be a small welcome refreshment.

The most generous donors will receive a precious and unique photographic souvenir.

Project Six Ten and Spazio Supernova have partnered to curate an immersive, multi- sensory event held over 24 hours in June. Focused on themes of fluidity, connection, and transformation, the one-and-a-half day event will aim to ignite a river of ideas and creativity as expressed through art, sound, movement and light.

Centered around the movement of water and the impermanence of landscapes, the series will consist of a featured art show, a performance piece, community engagement and mindfulness experiences.

It is our vision that as participants engage in the event, they will inevitably transform the experience in a push-and-pull of energetic exchange with the artwork, with others, and with themselves, mirroring the natural flow of water and waves.

Set against the dynamic backdrop of the piazza — a spiritual representation of water and pulsating energy itself— beneath the arches of historied walls, and tucked into hidden spaces, it is our intent for participants to embark on a journey that transcends the ordinary.

FRIDAY, JUNE 28 | DAY ONE 19:00 | Vernissage

Purpose: Ignite initial dialogue around the series’ themes and preview the show. Through a bite-sized salon-style discussion, spark conversation on how we, as a collective in Rome, can inspire positive, future-focused transformations in the city through culture, creativity, and art.

Attendees: A curated yet diverse mix of +/- 30 artists, collectors, writers, advocates, and other change-makers who can inspire and activate cultural conversations in the community.

Experience: An intimate, invite-only aperitivo- style gathering designed to foster discussion and preview the show. Honoring the multi- sensory themes, sound, taste, and design will be curated against the series’ focus.

SATURDAY, JUNE 29 | DAY TWO 8:30 | Yoga with Sarah Jade

Purpose: Activating physical movement and breath through a curated yoga sequence aligned with the series’ themes of water, fluidity, and the summer solstice, fostering spiritual openness and transformation.

Attendees: Open to the public, up to 15 participants. Registration required to ensure proper space allocation, with walk-ins welcome if space permits.

Experience: An early morning session embracing new beginnings and fluidity. Led by Sarah Jade, a French health therapist specializing in movement, breathing techniques, conversation circles, and guided meditation. Curated mats, plastic-free water, and warming blankets provide a holistic and eco-friendly experience.

SATURDAY, JUNE 29 | DAY TWO

9:30 | Sound Healing with Francesca Spallino

Purpose: Participants are invited to immerse themselves in a transformative auditory experience, shifting the body’s internal rhythms and energies through the profound movement of water facilitated by sacred sounds and vibrations.

10:30 | Public Exhibition Featuring Artist Tina Mifsud’s Latest Works

Purpose: To explore the ever-changing landscapes of the Maltese coastline and the transformative power of the sea through artistic expression.

Attendees: Open to all. Registration is not

required. Attendees: Open to the public, 15 participants

depending on the space. Registration required, with walk-ins welcome if space permits.

Experience: Potentially held in the cave in order to maximize the resonant effects of sound and deep meditation. Led by Francesca R. Spallino (to be confirmed), an Italian integrated wellness practitioner specializing in metaphysics therapy. Mats, bowls, blankets, and plastic-free water will be provided.

Experience: The show will feature the latest works of Tina Mifsud, an emerging artist from Malta. In this series, Mifsud explores water and the Maltese coastline, inviting viewers to engage with themes of impermanence, fluidity, and placemaking. Attendees will experience a visually stimulating environment that mirrors the natural flow of water.

SATURDAY, JUNE 29 | DAY TWO

16:00 – 17:00 | Papier-Mâché for Children

Purpose: To bring children into the creative discussion and experience, giving space for them to shift the energy and actively engage with an imaginative moment.

Attendees: Invited children from Sant’Egidio and the public. 10 spaces available. Registration required.

Experience: The session will feature pre-made papier-mâché pieces that the children will paint. Tarps will be laid where necessary to protect the artwork, creating a safe and engaging environment. The pieces will ideally reflect the themes of water and movement, allowing the children to explore these concepts through their collective creation.

18:30 – 18:35 | Pantomime with Rachel Lopes

Purpose: To provide participants with a performance piece that evokes a sense of spontaneity, creativity, awe, and the unexpected.

Attendees: Open to all, limited only by space.

Experience: Set in the dim light of the cave, French multidisciplinary artist Rachel Lopes will curate a flash-in-the-pan pantomime performance that explores the interactions of water, impermanence, movement, and creativity. The use of light, or the lack thereof, will play a crucial role in creating a multi- sensory experience that captivates and transforms the audience.

19:00 | Closing Drinks

Purpose: To celebrate the culmination of the 24-hour event, honoring the artists, participants, and the creative journey.

Attendees: Open to all event participants, artists, and the public.

Experience: An evening gathering that brings together all attendees to reflect on the experiences shared over the past 24 hours. Set in an inviting atmosphere, with curated sound, the closing drinks will offer a space for celebration, continued dialogue, and the forging of new connections. Attendees will enjoy a curated selection of drinks.

On the 25th of June at 7:30 pm Supernova invites you to the screening of Blow Up by Michelangelo Antonioni.

Blow-Up  is a 1966 psychological mystery film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, co-written by Antonioni, Tonino Guerra and Edward Bond and produced by Carlo Ponti. The plot was inspired by Argentine-French writer Julio Cortázar’s 1959 short story “Las babas del diablo”, which was later retitled “Blow-Up” to tie in with the film.

Plot:

Antonioni’s screenplay for Blow-Up is a “thriller-suspense” story revolving around the efforts of a young and successful fashion photographer in his struggle to determine whether a series of snapshots he takes at a public park contain evidence of a murder. As Thomas persists in his role as amateur detective, his quest leads him initially to question his technical mastery over the “hidden truth” recorded by his camera, then toward a confrontation with the realities of his life of “material advantages, gained at the expense of ideals”. Finally, he questions the reality of his own existence.

Biography:

Michelangelo Antonioni (29 September 1912 – 30 July 2007) was an Italian director and filmmaker. He is best known for his “trilogy on modernity and its discontents”—L’Avventura (1960), La Notte(1961), and L’Eclisse (1962)—as well as the English-language film Blowup (1966). His films have been described as “enigmatic and intricate mood pieces” that feature elusive plots, striking visual composition, and a preoccupation with modern landscapes. His work substantially influenced subsequent art cinema. Antonioni received numerous awards and nominations throughout his career, being the only director to have won the Palme d’Or, the Golden Lion, the Golden Bear and the Golden Leopard.

To reserve your seat please RSVP to:

info@spazio-supernova.com

Supernova is pleased to host ‘Fragments in Art,’ a cultural and artistic initiative that will be held on June 22-24 at our premises.

The event is promoted by Strade Diffuse, an association born out of volunteering and supporting individuals, with the aim of building a welcoming and caring society. This is geared towards a productive and shared future, where the family, broadly understood, becomes a privileged place for growth and education.

Program

Saturday, June 22

7:00 PM – 9:00 PM:

Presentation of the collective art project “Fragments in Art” and Vernissage with the Artists

Sunday, June 23

11:00 AM – 8:00 PM:

Figurative art exhibition

Musical accompaniment

Live painting art performance

Monday, June 24

10:00 AM – 6:00 PM:

“Creative Narratives Out Loud”

“Expressive Art Performance and Live Body Painting”

We look forward to seeing you for a weekend of art and creativity!

Supernova invites you to Films for The Solstice a night of films selected and introduced by Chrissie Iles, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art.

Three recent films by artists Seba Calfuqueo, Clarissa Tossin and Tuan Andrew Nguyen explore Mapuche and Maya cosmologies, the supernatural, and storytelling.

Seba Calfuqueo’s ‘Tray Tray Ko’ (2022) invites us to embark on a journey into the heart of the Mapuche cosmovision. In a video performance, the artist interweaves her own body into a sacred landscape. The Mapuche people have lived in the south and central regions of Chile and Argentina for thousands of years, and believe that the flow of water – especially waterfalls -has medicinal and healing properties. Draped in a long electric blue fabric, the artist pulls it through the forest, acting as a conduit between the tangible and the spiritual. By highlighting the inter-connectedness between her own personhood and the landscape, Seba Calfuqueo resists the dominant forces that threaten the area, including the Chilean government’s efforts to destroy Indigenous homelands for commercial use, and situates her own identity as a trans person within the natural world.

In Clarissa Tossin’s ‘Ch’u Mayaa’ (2017), Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House, built in 1921 at the height of the Maya Revival style in Los Angeles, is re-mapped as Maya space through a sonic and haptic transformation of the building by a series of dance movements performed by Crystal Sepúlveda across the surface of its exterior. The film features a soundtrack of birds, cicadas, wind, drums, a heartbeat, thunder, and music played on a clay jaguar flute by Maya elder Xavier Quijas Yxayoti. The healing ritual inscribed in these evocative sounds and movements, based on gestures found on ancient Maya pottery and murals, transforms the building into an uncanny echo of the site of its quotation – the ancient ruins of Uxmal in Mexico. This symbolic reclaiming of the borrowed indigenous cultural motifs of Wright’s building re-signifies it as belonging to a pre-Columbian heritage beyond Modernism, and to the present cultural life of Los Angeles and its Maya community.

Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s film ‘The Boat People’ (2020) is set in an unspecified time in the future, at a moment on the edge of potential extinction. The film follows a group of children, calling themselves the ‘Boat People’, as they travel across seas and land, gathering objects, artifacts and stories from a fragmented past world of human civilization that they never knew. They encounter a place formerly known as Bataan, and discover on its coast traces of war, a refugee crisis, and evidence of some of the earliest migrations in human history. Ideas of precarity, history and cultural memory are woven together in this existential, post-apocalyptic poetic film that invites us to re-imagine both the past and the future.

For his second appointment at Supernova, Damien Chazelle presents a selection of movies that explore the debut and the subsequent uses of sound in films.

Film lineup:

Walter Rutmann “Weekend” (1930)

Finding his voice (1929)

Scene from Blackmail Hitchcock (1929)

M of Fritz Lang 3 scenes (1931)

Scene from Enthusiasm by Dziga Vertov (1931)

Black and Tan Fantasy (Dudley Murphy) (1929)

Opening scene of Love Me Tonight Rouben Mamoulian (1932)

Battle on the Ice of Alexander Nevsky (1938)

WHEREUPON, TURMOIL 

ALLEN FRAME

Readings  from Sounds in the Distance

by David Wojnarowicz

with Allen Frame, Gabriele Giugni, and Jeanine Oleson 

Palermo Publishing announces book launches of its first monograph of photography, Whereupon, a selection of images by New York photographer Allen Frame, from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, in black and white and color. Whereupon expands the premise of Allen Frame’s recent book Fever (color photographs of 1981, Matte Editions, 2021) to show a broader time period with the same subject: his artist friends in their apartments and lofts and on the streets and beaches of New York. Also included are scenes from theater rehearsals from Turmoil in the Garden, a series of monologues from David Wojnarowicz’s Sounds in the Distance which Frame co-adapted and co-directed, with Kirsten Bates, in 1983 and 84 in New York and Berlin. 

Like photographers from his generation, such as Cindy Sherman, Nan Goldin, and Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Frame uses a highly cinematic style, but in his case, the framing and mise en scène have also been influenced by his experiences in theater. As Mark Alice Durant writes “His images are not decisive moments, they are not exactly portraits, or figure studies either. They exist interstitially. A quiet intimacy and muted staging share the proscenium, as friends, acquaintances, and strangers pause and proceed through the mostly nocturnal tableaux. Allen’s photographs are unique in their elegant understatement, they observe without judgment, are melancholy but not sentimental, smolder without clamor.”

Biography

Allen Frame’s first photography monograph, Detour (KEHRER), was published in 2001, followed by Fever (Matte Editions) in 2021. His book Innamorato (Meteoro Editions) was published in 2023. He won the Rome Prize in photography in 2017/18, and spent a year in Italy at the American Academy in Rome.  After residencies in St. Petersburg and Ekaterinburg, Russia, through CEC Artslink in 2019, he returned to Italy in 2021 as a Director’s Guest at Civitella Ranieiri in Umbria. Much of his recent work has been made in Italy. Last year he co-curated, with Antonio Sergio Bessa, an exhibition called Luxe, Calme, Volupté about New York in the 1980s with 75 artists, a satellite show at Candice Madey Gallery coinciding with the exhibition Darrel Ellis: Regeneration, presented at the Bronx Museum.  Darrel Ellis is featured both in Whereupon and in Fever. Other notable artists depicted in the two books include Peter Hujar, Bill Rice, Cady Noland, Robert Gober, Siobhan Liddell, Frank Moore, and Nan Goldin.  Frame is an Adjunct Professor of Photography at Pratt Institute (MFA) and also teaches at the School of Visual Arts, the International Center of Photography in New York, and for Strudelmedia. He grew up in Mississippi and graduated from Harvard. His work is represented by Gitterman Gallery.

Presents

“The Noise is the Message” by Andrea Inglese

for the publisher [dia•foria (Viareggio) & dreamBOOK editore (Pisa), 2023 with a preface by Chiara Portesine

In conversation with the author will be Ugo Fracassa & Simona Menicocci

In the concentration bubble of today’s poetry, the author is the message. In the noise of history, the message is the other. Inglese’s book is an inexhaustible cosmogony of communication, a clumsily Homeric dictionary of conflicting definitions. The message is short, the message is western, the message is pornographic; the message is “not a message of death” but “the message as usual can speak of death.” Irony carves out categories from within, making them empty pumpkins. THE NOISE IS THE MESSAGE to celebrate some anthropocenic Halloween, an apocalypse-party with survivors dressed as words, masks of syllables covering their bodies.

This evening of readings and screenings wants to explore the challenges of transforming, adapting and modifying text in relation to other media such as films, music and podcasts. Adapting text often involves making specific choices to give the work another experiential quality. Narrative, story-telling, seriality and other experimental adaptive solutions emerge from this creative moment.

Together with writers, directors and musicians we will discuss how their work adapts to different media. We will experience their work through readings and screenings and discuss the necessary negotiations that were used to transform the textual element into something else.

The form and function of textual adaptation is constantly evolving; the interconnectedness of media will direct the discussion towards thinking about adaption as product and process.

Participants include writers Katie Kitamura (AAR Fellow 2023), Claudia Durastanti (Italian Fellow 2015) and Chiara Barzini; director William 0lroyd and Alexandra de la Mora; composers Baldwin Giang (Rome Prize Fellow 2023-2024) and Kate Soper (Rome Prize Fellow 2024).

Spazio Supernova is a site-specific three year art experiment, exhibition and cultural space located in Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere. It will burn brightly for three years and then will explode and disappear hopefully leaving behind something new.

SCHEDULE

WORDS FOR FILMS

Introduction Maria Puri Purini

Reading by Chiara Barzini

Sequence of Dante y Soledad directed by Alexandra de la Mora

Sequence of Eileen directed by William Oldrovd

Transforming text into screen discussing the adaptation of The Marriage of the Red Fish by Guadalupe Nettel into Dante u Soledad and the adaptation of Ottessa Moshfegh’s book Bileen with directors William Oldroyd and Alexandra de la Mora, moderated by Chiara Barzini Break

WORDS TO LISTEN

Reading by Claudia Durastanti

Listening of the new pop song by Baldwin Giang with words by Katie Kitamura

Katie Kitamura and Baldwin Giang – conversation moderated by Claudia Durastanti

The Guardian

Supernova together with the Libreria di Trastevere invites you to the presentation of Ron Rash’s new book “The Guardian”, published by La Nuova Frontiera, Friday May 17th at 7:00 PM.

Set in a small town in the Appalachians, The Guardian is a breathtaking love story and a touching examination of the actions we take in the name of duty, family, honor, and love.

Plot

We are in 1951 in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, a small closed community that does not accept diversity. Blackburn Gant, whose existence has been irreparably marked since childhood by polio, seems doomed to spend a life among the dead as the sole guardian of the small cemetery. The work suits his introverted personality, and the inexplicable incidents that occur occasionally among gravestones and tombs scare him less than contact with the living. But when his best and only friend, Jacob Hampton, is called to arms and sent to fight overseas, he entrusts him with his young pregnant wife, Naomi.

Sixteen-year-old Naomi Clarke is also an outcast in Blowing Rock. Poor and without education, she works seasonally in the city’s most elegant hotel until she meets Jacob. The two fall desperately in love and marry, causing scandal in the community and facing opposition from Jacob’s wealthy parents.

Isolated and rejected by everyone and scared of Jacob’s possible non-return, Blackburn and Naomi support each other until a terrible deception will definitively derail their lives. But no secret can be kept forever.

Exciting and intense, The Guardian is an emotional novel about the bonds of friendship, the contradictions of family, and what it truly means to love.

Biography

Ron Rash is the author of the novel Serena, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and a New York Times bestseller, as well as the critically acclaimed novels The Risen, Above the Waterfall, Shadow Land, One Foot in Paradise, Saints at the River, and The World Made Straight; five collections of poems; and seven collections of stories, including Burning Bright, winner of the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award 2010, Nothing Gold Can Stay, a New York Times bestseller, and Chemistry and Other Stories, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award 2007.

Three times awarded the O. Henry Prize and winner of the Grand Prix de Litérature Policière 2014, he teaches at Western Carolina University.

Children’s Workshop by Alice Casana

After last fall’s painting workshop, where the young artists observed and painted large flowers to then offer the square a huge bouquet, we are getting ready this spring for a new challenge.

This time, children will be invited to discover how to draw emotions. We’ll understand how the eyes, the mouth, the head move… and how the nose instead remains fixed and unaware. With these basics, we will paint large portraits of adults that, through various suspended frames, will become the center of observation for the children.

Then there will be a second, more abstract part of the workshop, where we will be experimenting with various materials (including shaving foam!). We will create colorful prints that will complement the portraits through the collage technique.

Workshop dates:

Friday, May 10, from 4:30 PM to 7 PM

Saturday, May 11, from 10:30 AM to 1 PM

Sunday, May 12, from 4 PM to 6:30 PM

Children aged 6 to 12

(Max 12 children per day)

To book your spot, send an email to:

info@spazio-supernova.com

Marco Zenini Trio

For the third Residence Supernova will host a new trio formed by Marco Zenini, acoustic and electric bass player with classical and jazz background, Federico Pascucci, saxophonist and clarinetist with a strong interest in balkan and middle eastern music, and Jeries Haddad, quaninst and composer.

During their successful careers Haddad, Pascucci and Zenini have explored different musical languages that span from jazz to traditional music. Their musical work is characterized by an innovative language that finds connection between contemporary music and the various musical folk-traditions of the Mediterranean.  

The three artists, together for the first time at Supernova, will take inspiration from Sufi music, Tony Scott’s studies on music for zen meditation and improvisation language in the contemporary music to compose and perform original music with the intent to celebrate the true sense of the musical residency: encounter and creation.

Marco Zenini Trio’s members are:

Jeries Haddad • quanun

Federico Pascucci • saxophone, clarinet and ney

Marco Zenini • acoustic bass

Program: 

Friday, May 3rd, 10am: start of the residency, opening of Supernova spaces

Saturday, May 4th, 6pm: conversation with the musicians and open rehearsals

Sunday, May 5th, 6pm: final concert

The exhibition, curated by Annalisa D’Angelo, will be set up through large-format works depicting scenes of nature with a strong impact, centered around a small, fragile human figure, engaging a dialogue with intimate, small-format works composed of details of rocks, flowers and trunks. The intention is to unify opposing feelings: the pain of struggling to conceive and the ancient need to feel embraced by Mother Nature. To complete the exhibition, there will be a material setup curated by Eugenia Lecca, who will choose natural elements such as flowers and plants to contaminate the elements and create a photographic exhibition where technology and nature meet.

On Tuesday, April 9th at 7:30 PM, Spazio Supernova invites you to the screening of the film “Dante y Soledad,” directed by Alexandra de la Mora, one of our Supernova team members, at Cinema Troisi. A Q&A session with the director will follow.

Plot

When her first daughter, Inés, is born, a successful and independent woman discovers that her previous life is slipping away from her grasp, without clarity on whether what awaits her in the future is better. Dante and Soledad, a couple of saltwater fish, will serve as both the mirror and witnesses of her transformation. It is through their reflection that Inés will understand what she must do to face her new life.

Malìa

The Mediterranean Sea is a millennia-old witness of migrations and cultural exchanges, among which dozens of musical traditions have flourished over the centuries, intertwining in a continuous exchange of languages and sounds.

The Supernova space, overlooking a square ideally situated at the center of the Mediterranean basin, will host Santa Mediterranea, a series of three-day musical residencies. From March to May, Santa Mediterranea will bring together in Trastevere artists who have dedicated a significant part of their musical research to exploring the diverse sounds and musical suggestions of the Mediterranean.

For the second residence, Supernova will host Malìa, a duo of voices and frame drums that brings into dialogue the traces and mutual influences of the  Mediterranean musical traditions. Malìa’s duo combines the pure sound of polyphonic singing with the rhythms of Italian Tarantelle, Spanish jotas, Chilean cuecas, as well as Sephardic chants, evoking a contemporary version of the ancestral people’s storytelling. The result of this exploration is a diverse performance that spans centuries of musical stratifications, highlighting its hybrid and mixed nature. 

At Supernova, the duo, in addition to presenting their own work in concert, will work together with singers and multi-instrumentalists Lavinia Mancusi and Chiara Odorisio on the composition and arrangement of original pieces.

Malìa’s members are:

Denise Di Maria • voice and frame drums 

Livia Giaffreda • voice and frame drums 

Program:

Friday, April 5th, 11:00 AM: Start of the residency, opening of Supernova spaces.

Saturday, April 6th, 6:00 PM: Conversation with the musicians, open rehearsals, and dj-set with live musical accompaniment.

Sunday, April 7th, 4:00 PM: Final Concert.

DESIRED SINCE FOREVER A week dedicated to Valerio Mieli.

Unpublished stories, photographs, materials prepared for his films, videos, music. An investigation into the creative process as well as a review of the objects produced. It opens Friday 22nd with a night-time walk around the space with the writer Eleonora Marangoni: she will chat about images and literature, solitude and feelings and the desire for elsewhere.

Supernova invites you to the concert of polyphonic choral music performed by the Gayan and Sabina Vox choirs directed by Cristina Berlinzani on Thursday, March 21st at 8:30 PM.

The Gayan choir was born, or rather it would be better to say “reborn,” at the end of 2022 with the participation of singers from two previous choirs, Gayan and Ali di Bambù. In this year and a half, they have tackled their first a cappella pieces, are exploring contemporary authors, and wish to further engage with Renaissance and modern polyphony.

The Sabina Vox women’s choir was founded in January 2024 and is a choir where the participants are highly motivated and already have some experience as choristers. They have the desire to explore the sounds of the female voice, which for them is a dancing flame, a breath of wind, a bright point in the infinite horizon of the sky. In this concert, they propose sacred and secular pieces that convey a message of love and hope for humanity and nature.

We invite you to the presentation of Nicolás Jaar’s new book: Islands on March 18th.

Beneath the ocean lies another ocean, dormant, and the islands narrated by Nicolas Jaar are the dreams that emerge from its buried depths, told with a musical language that is simultaneously deeply visual.

Images crystallized in the impossible time of fables, revelations, hallucinations, myth; worlds where nothing is ever what it seems, and everything unfolds in an underground plot resonating with meaning, like a dream one struggles to remember: wells murmur in the language of God, ecstasy nestles between the planks of a wooden floor, skin becomes the paper to entrust one’s messages to, and from the amplifiers – the most precious weapon against the atrocities of oppressors – simulated shots and resistance songs resound.

A successful musician and producer turned debut author, Nicolás Jaar creates a shifting mosaic where images flow and return like loops, overlap like samples, reverberate like echoes in a minimal and prismatic plot whose fragments vanish and reemerge transfigured. Thus, the fairy tale gives way to revelation; historical account to poetry; prayer to theatrical piece.

Exploring these islands means diving into an abyss of symbols that seem inexhaustible, elusive fragments of meaning that leave a deep mark in our memory, like the reflections of Recimo’s magic mirrors, whose tranquil distortions infect minds with a mysterious calm resembling a spell or a curse.

Nicolás Jaar (1990) is considered by international critics as one of the most important electronic music producers. Born in New York and raised in Chile, he gained international fame in 2011 with his debut album Space Is Only Noise. He has since released five more albums under his name, including Sirens (2016) and Cenizas (2020). He founded the experimental music label Other People, featuring artists such as Lydia Lunch and Pierre Bastien. He is the composer of the soundtracks for Jacques Audiard’s Dheepan (Palme d’Or winner in 2015) and Déa Kulumbegashvili’s Beginning (2019). In recent years, Nicolás has focused primarily on teaching, conducting sound editing courses and listening workshops for emerging and novice musicians at various institutions and events, including the Museo de la Memoria (Santiago, Chile), AdBK (Munich, Germany), free.wav (Attappadi, India), Festival 4×4 (Chiapas, Mexico), and Dar Jacir and Alrowwad (Bethlehem, Palestine).

The Mediterranean Sea is a millennia-old witness of migrations and cultural exchanges, among which dozens of musical traditions have flourished over the centuries, intertwining in a continuous exchange of languages and sounds.

The Supernova space, overlooking a square ideally situated at the center of the Mediterranean basin, will host Santa Mediterranea, a series of three-day musical residencies. From March to May, Santa Mediterranea will bring together in Trastevere artists who have dedicated a significant part of their musical research to exploring the diverse sounds and musical suggestions of the Mediterranean.

The first residents are the members of Malhuma, a string quartet dedicated to composing and performing original instrumental music, significantly influenced by the sounds and instruments typical of Mediterranean culture. The creative process of the group is deeply influenced by their connection with the places that inspire their music. Their debut album, Terra Murata, was recorded live in the deconsecrated church of Santa Margherita Nuova on the island of Procida, near the Gulf of Naples. The genesis and recording of the album became the subject of a documentary of the same name, that shows the studio work phases and fascinating scenes of the island that inspired their music.

Malhuma is currently working on composing the music that will be part of their second album. Some of these pieces will be written and presented to the public for the first time during their residency in the spaces of Supernova.

The Members of Malhuma are:

Marcello Smigliante Gentile • mandolin, mandocello

Alessandro Butera • manouche guitar, mohan veena

Gianluca Trinchillo • classical guitar

Bruno Belardi • double bass

Program:

Friday, March 15th, 11:00 AM: Start of the residency, opening of Supernova spaces.

Saturday, March 16th, 6:00 PM: Conversation with the artists and open rehearsals with live musical accompaniment of fragments from the documentary Terra Murata.

Sunday, March 17th, 4:00 PM: Final Concert.

We invite you to the presentation Brian Evenson’s new book: “The Last Days.”

After the amputation of his hand, Kline, an undercover agent, lives a solitary existence, spending his time in his apartment, resistant to any kind of contact. One day, however, the phone rings. “It’s fortune knocking,” say two strangers, offering an interesting job opportunity. Kline wants nothing to do with it, but his interlocutors are not really asking. He is reluctantly taken to the headquarters of the Mutilation Brotherhood and enters the alternate world constructed by this cult, fanatically loyal to its principles. Kline must investigate a murder that occurred within the Brotherhood, but every apparent truth is a fragment of a larger, incomprehensible work, much like his truncated arm that ends in a phantom hand, nonexistent yet vividly alive for him. As he tries to navigate a maze of lies, threats, and deceit, Kline discovers that his own survival will depend on an act of pure will and emancipation.

In his admired afterword, Peter Straub considers Brian Evenson an extreme writer. “The Last Days” is an intense and disturbing novel that fearlessly looks into the abyss of the human heart.

Biography:

Brian Evenson (Ames, Iowa, 1966) is a writer, translator, critic, and university professor. His works have earned him numerous awards, including the O. Henry Award for short fiction, three Shirley Jackson Awards, and the International Horror Guild Award. According to George Saunders, “there is no more intense, prolific, and apocalyptic fiction writer in America.”

The Family

On the 29th of February Sara Mesa will present her new book The Family.

Sara depicts a clear x-ray of a family with its latent wounds, fragilities, contradictions, and weaknesses.

Biography

Born in Madrid in 1976, Sara Mesa is an award-winning Spanish author of short stories and novels. She has published “Cuatro por cuatro,” a finalist for the Herralde Prize, “Cicatrice” (Bompiani, 2017), awarded the El Ojo Crítico de Narrativa prize, and recognized among the books of the year by El País, El Mundo, ABC, El Español. Her works also include “Un incendio invisible,” “Cara de pan,” the collection of stories “Mala letra,” and the novella “Silencio administrativo.”

Her latest novel, “Un amore,” was a finalist for the Strega European Prize and has been translated into numerous languages.

We invite you to the literary event on February 15th at 6:30 PM.

Libertarians: the submerged voices of women in literature

This event stems from the desire of the publishing house Rina to share the work of rediscovering and recovering the figures and texts of Italian women writers, sparking a cultural debate that, in a transversal manner, can involve publishing realities, magazines, female and male writers, university professors. The goal is to reflect together and delve into the research activities engaged by publishing and academia to bring to light a true “submerged galaxy” of female authors.

The discussion will feature Michela Dentamaro, editor of Rina, Andrea Crisantis De Ascentiis, editor of Ago, Paolo Guazzo, editor of Cliquot, Professor of Italian Literature Laura Fortini from Roma Tre, Professor of Italian Literature and Gender Studies Annalisa Perrotta from Sapienza, Professor of Modern and Contemporary Literature Monica Storini from Sapienza, Manuela Altruda, editor of Letterate Magazine, Loreta Minutilli, editor of Il Rifugio dell’Ircocervo, Alice Girotto, from the collective Le Ortique. The discussion will be moderated by the writers’ collective Montag.

Following the discussion, there will be readings from the pages of these submerged writers by writers Emanuela Anechoum, Giulia Caminito, Claudia Durastanti, Ilaria Gaspari, Paola Moretti, and Anna Voltaggio, as well as writers Luciano Funetta, Giorgio Ghiotti, Valerio Millefoglie, and Carlo Sperduti.

On the 14th of February at 6pm we invite you to the inauguration of Daniele di Girolamo’s solo exhibition A measure of a Distance, curated by Niccolò Giacomazzi.

A measure of distance by Daniele Di Girolamo unfolds in two evolving environments divided into the levels of Supernova, exploring relational dynamics according to a dual awareness: relating to the other and listening to the inner flows of one’s own knowledge. These are the chords that Daniele intends to touch.

On the ground floor, the exhibition presents the installation of three pairs of thistles dancing in space, drawing orbits through the unraveling of brass tubes. Electrical wires run inside the artificial stems that, like plant sap, allow the hermaphrodite flower to rotate on itself and seek possible contact. By observing the behavior of a plant placed inside a dark environment with only one source of light, we will notice how it will find its way to the light source. Similar to phototropism, thistle caulis find a meeting place at the end of their spatial explorations, where reaching for light is replaced by the necessary act of meeting. The rotations show us the mutability of relationships, which can sometimes result in not finding each other while at others they express the contingencies of coming together in embrace and inevitable release.

The warm breath and pulse of rapprochement are recalled by the rubbing of sharp thorns and interrupted by the frustration of their ignoring each other. The whole relational process made up of approaches, rejections and wrong circumstances, as Daniel himself describes, manifests as “sweet, violent, funny, romantic, melancholic, erotic and raw.” In the moment of maximum tension, the perception of a bond is as possible as that of a contrast. The path of the stems concretizes the past prior to the encounter, the result of a motion with defined structures. At this moment, the encounter takes its course and speaks of the present: the bodily sensations and emotional resonances of each individual act on his or her own passionate state. One enters into a more introverted and intimate reflection, which reaches the peak of intensity with the lower floor installation.

In the underground space, three sculptures worked with a plastic material that recall the shape of crumpled cylinders are shown. Inside them is sea sand that, subjected to a rotating motion, recreates the sound of the undertow. From the natural element, taken from its context of origin, a sound memory is extracted that continues to remind us of the place from which it came. In this dimension, the relationship with the other fades into a more individual and direct relationship with oneself. Time slows down, listening increases: one leaves the mind free to descend into the depths and take the measure of the distance that unites or separates oneself from others.

We invite you on February 1st at 7 pm to The Mute: a circle of feminist self-awareness. Colettivo Montag engages in dialogue with Le Sentinelle.

“Women will form self-awareness groups and say, ‘Finally, a bit of free therapy’”. Le Sentinelle will tell you what it means to engage in a self-awareness group in 2023, peeking into the spiritual, cultural, and political experiences of feminists in the 1970s. In this event, we will take you inside a self-awareness session, weaving together stories and unraveling, starting from the practice of reading, narratives with each other.

Le Sentinelle is a feminist self-awareness group born in Rome in 2023. They meet twice a month, read feminist theory and practice texts together, and then discuss them for hours, intertwining their personal lives with the voices they discover in books. Meeting after meeting, they try to build a space for reflection, sharing, and, above all, mutual care: if one is in the dark, the other acts as a sentinel for her step; she lights a fire for her.”

We invite you to the film screening of Heliconia by Paula Rodriguez on the 25th of January at 6:30 pm.

Heliconia, Paula Rodríguez Polanco, Colombia/France, 2020, 27’

SYNOPSIS

Heliconia is the portrait of three young people in search of an earthly paradise. It is the story of their journey, their desire for freedom and their emotional ties through the multifaceted landscape of the tropics.

BIO

Paula Rodríguez Polanco (Bogotá, 1994) is a filmmaker, researcher and curator. She studied philosophy, art history and cinema in Paris, where she has lived for the past ten years. She directed the short films Camposanto in 2019 (Festival Tous Courts) and Heliconia in 2020 (FID Marseille, IndieLisboa, Jihlava, Mar del Plata IFF, Documenta Madrid, Beldocs…).

Her films are closely linked to her research work, in which she questions the materiality of celluloid film in contemporary practices and the image’s relationship with history and individual and collective memory. She is currently preparing a PhD thesis on Super 8 and 16mm practices in contemporary cinema, and is writing her first feature film Malpaís, produced by mutokino (Colombia) and L’Heure d’été (France).

AWARDS

Special Mention First Film Prize – FIDMarseille 2020
Special Mention Altered States Competition – Mar del Plata IFF
Special Mention Best Short – FICCALI
Best International Short Film – Lima Alterna
Best Character – Festival Laberinto

FESTIVALS

FIDMarseille, FICValdivia, Jihlava IFF, Festival Cámara Lúcida, Zinebi, Amiens FIFAM, Mar del Plata IFF, Documenta Madrid, IndieLisboa, Shorts Mexico, Beldocs, Festival internacional de cine de Cali FICCALI, Las Palmas IFF, Festival Obskura, Festival internacional de cine de la isla de Chiloé, Panorama du cinéma, Colombien à Paris, Daimon Muestra de Cine, Dresden Filmfest, Leiden Shorts, Festival de Cine Independiente Laberinto, Cinemancia Festival Metropolitano de Cine, Lima Alterna, Dhaka IFF and Panorama of the European Film in Cairo

SPACE HOUSE by Valerio D’angelo opens a gateway onto the square of Santa Maria in Trastevere and transports us into another reality. As suggested by the title, the exhibition is inexorably linked to the concept of space, understood both in its astronomical and architectural sense due to its site-specific nature, and delves into insights from quantum physics. To understand this union simplistically, imagine standing in front of an automatic dispenser of special and unpredictable balls. Pulling some out, each behaves differently from what one might expect: one might bounce in front of us while moving horizontally, another might take on different forms when observed and when not, and so on. This happens in quantum physics with the study of particles, and in Valerio D’Angelo’s practice with the reflections generated in the dichroic mirrors of his installations.

Access to the exhibition is allowed through a portal that places the viewer at the center of a new dimension. As one passes through, space vibrates, alters, and reflects distorted images, proving that we are one possibility among infinite possibilities. The installation becomes an intermediary place for the multiplication of forms and colors, of truth. Crossing the threshold, one enters Supernova’s spaces where  a cold light reveals structures, sometimes colossal, sometimes intangible, revieling elements that appear as boarding gates to other galaxies. The dichroic film, D’Angelo’s preferred material, first appears as a fluid entity and then as an organism that takes on different forms depending on the support it inhabits, be it a column, a Venetian piece of furniture, or a projector. The succession of portal works deprives our universe, and thus us humans, of the centrality we enjoy, instead directing attention towards the unknown, beyond the boundaries of perception. Our image undergoes a doubling, it fragments into displaced worlds in which various existences become possible and probable.

In the last chapter of the exhibition, an image appears that seems to be observed under a microscope: it is the synthesis of Boltzmann’s brain theory. Through the study of lenses and lights, the projection of a micro-fragment of reality is revealed, a transposition of the fluctuating brain that generates what we perceive as real. In this case, the theory itself is reversed; it is no longer the creator shaping and projecting, but rather we are observing its projection in a slow and hypnotic movement. Everything is questioned, us and the entire universe. Even if only for a second.

Statement by Valerio D’Angelo:

“My artistic research focuses on the element of reflection, initially understood as a narcissistic gesture that allows isolating and enhancing one’s own image and opening up new forms of self-perception. Deepening this investigation, the second dimension accessed through reflection has gained increasing importance, coming to be perceived as another, displaced and equally present reality. This thought has taken on disturbing nuances, sowing in my consciousness the sensation that the reflected image was not only the result of our optical mechanism but a reality that observes us in return. We are the fragment, the doppelgänger of other realities.

Reflections on parallel dimensions and meeting portals capable of questioning the centrality of our existence, led me to approach quantum physics. I have been inspired by the idea that our reality is very improbable and possible only because all other possible realities are such: we are an improbable possibility of infinite possibilities. Banally, but also not, it is what is dealt with in the animated series Rick and Morty.

Certainly, in the cosmos of all infinite dimensions, we are not at the center. The other realities are certainly not projections of ours, but – more likely – we are a small nuance of much more probable realities. Whilst conteplating my own reflection, I’d like to think that I myself, could be the result of a reflection. I become a fragment of a possible reality, no longer at the center of the universe. Mirrors are conceived as gates of communication between different realities, where, more than scrutinizing a new one, we realize that we are one in turn, perhaps observed for a moment. The lexicon of my installations aligns with the cinematic and science fiction imagery of the 80s-90s and takes inspiration from post-apocalyptic dystopian narrative, where everything is overturned, and the linearity of our existence is broken.

Probabilistic physics makes us aware of absurd truths that we almost treat as a game. I want to take the probabilities of quantum physics, transfer the awareness, and bring back the experience.”

Montag has been working for three years on simultaneous writing, a composition technique based on the real-time sharing of an editable file, upon which the three authors act simultaneously. Simultaneous writing means giving up the jealousy of words, the private ownership of the text, and control over its evolutions. Each writer can change anything the others have done without needing permission. In this performance, Montag will expose his writing process, which will be projected onto the walls of Supernova, and anyone can see it as it unfolds. By the end of the evening, a complete story will be ready, born before your eyes, to explore what it means to write together and let go. The music of Bruno Belardi, Denise Di Maria, and Vittorio Gatti will accompany and, in turn, inspire the writing, with the same spirit of improvisation and free creation. Simultaneous writing is an open dream.

To read the result of the simultaneous performance click the link down below:

Supernova in collaboration with the American Academy has invited the renowned world chef Elena Reygadas to bring her Mexican cuisine to the Santa Maria Square in Trastevere. In an effort to celebrate the local community and bring everyone together at the same table to experience traditional Mexican food.

Elena Reygadas was named the best female chef in the world in 2023. Her cuisine is based on the respect for Mexican ingredients from small producers, and she owns and manages her main restaurant in Mexico City, Rosetta.

Supernova, in collaboration with the initiative of the Community of Sant’Egidio, invites you to “Ri-giocattolo” (Re-toy).

“Ri-giocattolo” is a second-hand toy market organized by the Schools of Peace of the Community of Sant’Egidio. This event takes place in many Italian and European cities in the month of December. It involves the sale of used toys with the goal of raising funds to support aid programs in Africa, such as the DREAM program against AIDS.

The event has a dual purpose: giving a new life to used toys, avoiding waste and pollution, and at the same time, helping children in Africa.

On Friday, December 1st, 2023, the solo exhibition “Purely Imaginable” by the duo Mozzarella Light, composed of Giulia Ciappi and Marco Frassinelli, curated by Niccolò Giacomazzi, will open at the Supernova space.

The intervention by Mozzarella Light consists of a visual manipulation of the external world using light, a ubiquitous yet immaterial medium. Through light, a direct relationship is established with the space, which is respected in its otherness with an innocent attitude. The light rays invade the entire environment, fragmenting the linear beam of light upon contact with the intermediary presence, in this case, plastic and water.

The exhibition will be open until the 15th of December.

Monday through Friday from 6pm to 8pm.

Supernova opens its first night of cineclub with a selection curated and presented by Damien Chazelle that explores the cornerstone of cinema, starting from the Lumière brothers and arriving to Chris Marker’s photo-roman.

FILM LINEUP:

La Sortie de l’usine Lumière à Lyon

Le Débarquement du congrès de photographie à Lyon

La Voltige

La Pêche aux poissons rouges

Les Forgerons

Repas de bébé

Le Saut à la couverture

Place des Cordeliers à Lyon

La Mer

L’arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat

Life of an American Fireman 

The Great Train Robbery

Ballet mécanique

All My Life

La Jetée

Damien Sayre Chazelle is an American film director, screen-writer and producer. He is known for directing the films Whiplash (2014), La La Land (2016), First Man (2018) and Babylon (2022).

For Whiplash, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. His biggest success came with La La Land, which was nominated for 14 Academy Awards, winning six including Best Director, making him the youngest person to win the award at age 32.

Coloriamo la Piazza is a kids workshop of three days organised by Alice Casana.

During each of these days, a group of 10 children aged 5 to 10 were invited to explore watercolor techniques. With this workshop, we played with pigments and water, discovering the wonderful effects that can be created on paper. We worked on a larger scale with professional materials so that the children could discover all their potential.

Each child chose a fresh flower from those we provided. We give them a vase and invited them to observe it thoroughly, perhaps like they have never done before. Together, we obeserved the shades of color, its shapes, its peculiarities, and even its imperfections so that they could paint not a generic flower but the specific one they had chosen. In this way the children discovered that by observing and painting it, they would have been able to enter into symbiosis with that flower!

We ensured that the drawing conveyed these emotions, hoping to bring out the little artist in each of them. At the end of the workshop all the children who participated in the workshop were invited to place their drawings in a huge bouquet that colored the Piazza of Santa Maria in Trastevere, and we adults toasted to their masterpiece!

Alice Casana was born and raised in Milan, after wandering a bit, she settled in Rome because she considers it the most beautiful city in the world. Trastevere is the neighborhood where, for about ten years, she has chosen to live and work.

She spent her childhood under the large tables of illustrators who, to keep her quiet, handed her brushes and colored pencils. Since then, she has never stopped painting. She enjoys alternating between large mural paintings, fabric painting, and creating worlds made of splashes of color on paper.

Currently, she is writing and illustrating a children’s story set between Trastevere and a mysterious planet.

During the first literary evening at the Supernova space, the Montag collective presented Marvin magazine with its latest issue, in dialogue with Martina Piromani and Flavio Natale. Following this, there were readings of some of the stories.

Marvin is a literary project born from an occasional editorial team that periodically creates an illustrated story magazine. The stories are selected through a call consisting of three elements: a character, a place, and a phrase. For the seventh issue, fate chose a speleologist, a love hotel, and a small death. Once the stories are chosen, authors come together to bring life to a collaborative editing workshop coordinated by the editorial team.

Montag is a literary collective active between Rome and Turin. It was born during the pandemic with the idea of writing a novel with six hands, utilizing simultaneous remote writing that leverages digital platforms and draws inspiration from jazz improvisation. Montag’s stories have appeared in ‘Marvin,’ ‘retabloid,’ ‘Neutopia,’ ‘Quaerere,’ ‘Salmace,’ and ‘poetarum Silva.’ For ‘Marvin,’ they have also published an essay on collective writing, and for ‘L’indiscreto,’ they curated the first Italian translation of the Dark Mountain Project manifesto. They wrote the Libretto for Amber Mold, a musical composition by Luca Guidarini. Montag is represented by ‘Oblique Studio.’

Benki, founder of the Yorenka Tasorentsi Institute, is a leader of the Ashaninka people working for nature conservation and the protection of indigenous peoples’ rights, cultures, and lands.

The Ashaninka, a millennia-old community and ancestors of the Incas, reside in the states of Acre in Brazil and Peru. With a population of approximately 100,000, they are one of South America’s largest indigenous communities that have maintained their autonomy and traditions.

Born in 1974, Benki is the son of an Ashaninka village chief and a Brazilian mother of white descent. He was designated as one of the “pajés” (those who transmit ancestral knowledge) of the Ashaninka and from a young age, he began advocating for the protection of their lands and the Amazon Rainforest.

Benki is a catalyst for change on cultural, environmental, and political levels. As a cultural and environmental activist and a pacifist spiritual leader from the depths of the Amazon, he has been a key figure in unprecedented cultural projects originating from the Amazon Rainforest that extend far beyond the region. His peaceful activism inspires and influences people globally.

The practical results of these projects have been remarkable: the expansion of sustainable environments, reduction in deforestation, decrease in violence, and improvement of social conditions. Benki’s work has earned him global recognition as a tireless advocate for indigenous peoples’ rights and the conservation of their cultures and territories. Among various accolades, in 2004, he received the Brazilian government’s National Human Rights Award, and in 2017, along with his Ashaninka community Apiwtxa, he was honored with the prestigious Equator Prize from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for environmental projects.

Another crucial aspect of Benki’s mission is global awareness. Throughout his years of work, he has become the spokesperson for a generation of Indigenous Peoples concerned about safeguarding the world’s environmental heritage. He travels worldwide, spreading his message, garnering support and allies for nature and human rights defense, forging connections between indigenous peoples and official governments or institutions.

Fabio Mauri is one of the most prominent voices of the Italian avant-garde of the post war period. He lived between Bologna and Milan until 1957, when he moved to Rome. In 1942, he started the magazine II Setaccio [The Sieve] with his friend Pier Paolo Pasolini. He taught Aesthetics of experimentation at the Academy of Fine Arts of L’Aquila for 20 years. He was invited to the Venice Biennale in 1954, 1974, 1978, 1993, 2003, 2013 and 2015, and to DOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel in 2012.

Several important themes can be found in Mauri’s work, all shaped into his works of art: the Screen, the Prototypes, the Projections, the Photography as Painting, the substantial Identity of Expressive Structures, the lasting relationship between Thought and World and between Thought as World. Mauri’s work, as complex as an history essay, becomes his autobiography, compact and uniform in its development and multifaceted in the attention to the contemporary world: an analysis where the fate of the individual and history co-exist.

OPERA IN CANTIERE “SENZA” 1975

In the actions of “Senza” a series of intellectual works, organisms, complex drawings, such as films, are exhibited. Projected on the ‘world’ as on a “screen”, neither neutral nor equal, endowed with form and signification and, that is, with its own symbol. The contemporary debate is moral, political and ideological.

In the screenings of “Senza”, through films by “author”, (not surprisingly, often, European), essential cuts of modern culture are identified. Projected, as if introjected, on objects and bodies. Art scrutinizes the historical category of its time. The intellectual product operates as a protagonist: it possesses strength and specific, ‘physical’ weight, in the order of the foundation of the plot, that is, of its symbolic constituent. It does, because it is, history and world.