September 15th at 6pm

Supernova presents “Along the Weight I Have Lost”, a solo exhibition by Wang Yuxiang, bringing together previously unseen works by the artist, curated by Niccolò Giacomazzi. The exhibition will be open until October 27, 2025.

The project grounds its visual research in the physical phenomena of alternation, flow, and evaporation within the contemporary urban space, focusing on the role of water molecules in constant transformation, in relation to movement and the complex interactions among city residents. This interest intertwines with the artist’s fascination with the theory of humors and with the dialectical relationship between the human body and humidity in traditional Chinese medicine.

The works presented by Wang Yuxiang have been conceived site-specifically for Supernova, exploring the relationship between fullness and emptiness in architecture, between temperature and humidity.

The artist’s encounter with daily life sparked in him an interest in a concept that finds one of its most complete expressions precisely in the Chinese language: Yuanfen.

The word Yuanfen, “to have destiny without a destiny,” expresses the idea of fortuitous encounters and coincidences linked to an inexplicable past and future, describing the fate and circumstances that bring people to cross paths. At first glance, it may be associated with the concepts of cause and effect, relationship and emotion, but at its root lie many pre-existing conditions, including the will of heaven, fate, practice, and opportunity. In philosophical terms, it could be defined as necessity within chance, but this definition does not exhaust its meaning: destiny is not only predetermined in a previous life but also cultivated and created in the future. There are coincidences, but also deep connections and human warmth. It is difficult to establish what is divine will and what is human action, but both elements are essential. This term contributes to developing and completing the link between humidity, the human condition, and the theme of encounter, positioning itself as the poetic key of the entire project.

Wang spent the entire month of June 2025 at the Fonderia Artistica Battaglia in Milan to create one of the works on display, following an invitation to residency. “The bronze casting, at the heart of this process, requires collaboration and mutual listening with the master founders,” Wang says. “It is a technique that forces one to synthesize the work in the most essential way possible, respecting materiality, effort, and the logic of nature. It is a journey that unites passion, alchemy, temperature, and ethics, transforming thought into living matter.”

Along the Weight I Have Lost weaves a narrative in which destiny becomes the invisible thread between contemporary existences, traversing memory, transformation, and interdependence.

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Wang Yuxiang
Wang Yuxiang was born in 1997 in Anhui, China. He lives and works in Rome.

His research focuses on merging Mediterranean and Eastern culture through the use of simple materials and a concise visual language, straddling his travels and his birthplace. Time, history, and memory are the conceptual themes that guide his work. The artist distances himself from the places where he intervenes, analyzes their particularities, and restores them through the visual architecture of site-specific works. Influenced by deconstructivism, he conducts preliminary investigations and research into the environment of the place of creation before beginning his work, later intervening locally. In this context, the selection and arrangement of materials intertwine, establishing a coherent minimalist dialectic on the weight of historical memory and the questioning of burdensome yet deeply rooted images within culture.

The themes he explores revolve around reflecting on the hidden values of the landscape in the context of deconstruction. Among his latest solo exhibitions are: Even the Sun Rises, curated by Marcello Smarrelli, text by Giuliana Benassi, Fondazione Pastificio Cerere, Rome (2024); Think of Leaving, National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia, Rome (2023); RICCHIAMO, curated by Niccolò Giacomazzi, Spazio Y, Rome (2022).

He has also participated in several group exhibitions, including: Checkmate, text by Giuliana Benassi, Mimmo Scognamiglio artecontemporanea, Milan (2024); STATE OF UNEXPECTEDNESS, curated by Flaminia Ciuferri and Niccolò Giacomazzi, Scoletta di San Giovanni Battista in Bragora, Campo Bandiera e Moro, Venice (2024); My Generation: The Art of Post-90!, curated by Wang Chunchen, Sun Dake, Gu Pinqiao, Jia Qianfan, Shanxi Contemporary Art Museum, Taiyuan, China (2023); Parallel East/West, curated by Graziano Menolascina, Mimmo Scognamiglio artecontemporanea, Milan (2022); Vacunalia: The Unkind Time, curated by Niccolò Giacomazzi and Benedetta Monti, Vacone (RI) (2022); Davide Salle | Enzo Cucchi | Wang Yuxiang, curated by Graziano Menolascina, PRAC Centro Per l’Arte Contemporanea, Ponzano Romano (2022).

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Opening: September 15, 2025, from 6pm to 9.30pm
Closing: October 27, 2025
Exhibition design: Sauro Radicchi, Giorgio Merlani
Production: Fonderia Artistica Battaglia, Milan
For further information, please write to info@spazio-supernova.com

Monday 23 June at 7.30pm

We invite you to a Meme Reading Club with Damjanski! 30 participants. One circle. Each arrives with a meme on their phone. One by one, we show and tell — offering up these fragments of digital culture for collective reflection. We read them aloud, together. Interpretations overlap, clash, unravel.

Bring your meme. Take a seat. Let’s read the internet.

Damjanski is an artist living in a browser. Concerned with themes of power, poetry and participation, he explores the concept of apps as artworks. His work has appeared internationally at the Centre Pompidou, ZKM Karlsruhe, and MAMM in Medellín. Currently Damjanski resides in New York.

20-22 June at 5.30 pm
Supernova is pleased to invite you to the second edition of the photographic exhibition “Beyond the Ordinary”.

The event sponsored by the Community of Sant’Egidio, is an opportunity to raise funds to support assistance projects for people in need and for peace.

The proceeds donated on the occasion of the exhibition will be entirely donated to the Community of Sant Egidio. Particularly generous guests will receive a photographic souvenir as a gift, our special way of saying thank you.

Tuesday 17 June at 8pm
Supernova is pleased to invite you to the screening of the documentary ‘San Damiano’ introduced by the directors Gregorio Sassoli and Alejandro Cifuentes. Q&A will follow.

Gregorio Sassoli is known as a director and screenwriter. He studied Fine Arts in Film and Television Production at New York University and participated in the films “This must be the place” and “To Rome with love”  

Alejandro Cifuentes has gained experience at the television production company Stand by Me and has collaborated as an author with various online newspapers, including Fondazione Leonardo – Civiltà delle Macchine. From 2018 to 2021 he held the role of junior author at the production company Corima, contributing to the creation of the Forum program

The documentary:
San Damiano is a 2024 film that follows the life of Damian, a 35-year-old homeless Polish man, living in Rome, specifically around Termini Station and in the Roman walls. The film tells his story, his escape from the psychiatric hospital in Wroclaw, his dreams of becoming a singer and his love with Sofia, another homeless woman. 

Monday 16 June at 7pm
Join us as we take you through a poetic reading. The Tarot of Better Days is a project that explores reading of the Tarot de Marseille cards. The evening forms into a rave for one night, featured by original scenography, a work by artist Elsa Martinez, and a DJ set by Mira. The evening will be lead by Marie Hervé.

The Tarot of Better Days is a project that explores the poetic reading of the Tarot de Marseille cards amidst the ruins of the Western empire. Studying the Tarot as an object that traveled from the Middle Ages, from Northern Italy to Genoa and Marseille, Marie Hervé takes on the figure of the seer as a reader of the present times, amid the end of a bourgeois world, where the promise of brighter tomorrows collapses in favor of faith in good fortune.

Marie Hervé is a visual artist, author and bookmaker living and working between Rome and Marseille.

Friday 13 June at 7pm
Supernova invites you to see “Mojo’q che b’ixan ri ixkanulab’ / Antes de que los volcanes canten / Before the Volcanoes Sing together with the director Clarissa Tossin and Chrissie Iles who will be presenting the film. 

Clarissa Tossin works across moving-image, installation, sculpture, and collaborative research. Her practice is deeply engaged with ecological thinking and geographies defined by systems of colonization and extraction.

Chrissie Iles is a British-American curator, art critic and art historian. She currently serves as the Anne & Joel Ehrenkranz curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

The film
A 2022 film by Clarissa Tossin that explores the ability of Mayan cultural assets, particularly wind instruments, to give voice to indigenous knowledge systems.

Wednesday 11 June at 8pm
Supernova is proud to present ‘Me Quedo Contigo’, a film by acclaimed Mexican director Artemio Narro.

Short about the film:
In Me quedo contigo, Artemio Narro presents what initially seems to be a teen comedy, featuring a young Spanish woman who travels to Mexico and, while waiting for her boyfriend to arrive, extends her bachelorette festivities with a group of wealthy friends. But he catches the audience off guard.

Q&A will follow with the director!

RSVP by sending an email to:
info@spazio-supernova.com

June 9 at 7pm
Supernova and the American Academy in Rome are excited to present the launch of a new English-language edition of Michelangelo Antonioni’s book, “That Bowling Alley on the Tiber”.

We are doing a screening of Antonioni’s famous film “The Passenger” followed by a reading from the new book with Rome Prize Winner Julia Rose Katz.

Sunday 8th at 7pm

Finally we invite you again for an evening of graphic novels. Johnny Mox and Chiara Fazi present their book “Polifonia”. 

Polyphony

A little boy and his mother move to the other side of the world, to a small village lost in the mountains that is rapidly becoming depopulated. In the past of Koko and Indileni and that of the inhabitants of Grae there is a lot of pain, a suffering that vanishes thanks to music. The language they speak in the choir room doesn’t need words, music is a supernatural and unstoppable force: it lifts objects, overturns prejudices, creates a new space. This story is set in that space.

June 3 at 9pm
We invite you to a techno electronic evening with Aleph Molinari.

Aleph Molinari is a multidisciplinary creative working across art direction, curation, photography, and publishing. He currently serves as Co Editor-in-Chief of Purple Magazine and contributes regularly to publications including Assouline, Dazed, and Materia. His work includes in-depth conversations with a wide range of cultural figures—among them Patti Smith, David Lynch, Björk, Anohni, Federico Campagna, and Merlin Sheldrake. Molinari has also curated exhibitions at major institutions such as the Palais Galliera, the Centre Pompidou, and Art Basel.

His instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/ubi.sunt

RSVP by sending an email to:
info@spazio-supernova.com

Funkallisto
Funkallisto is born in the vibrant heart of Trastevere in 2004. Their original and rearranged repertoire is rooted in 1970s African American music, reinterpreted through funk, afrobeat, and Latin styles—with an unmistakable touch.

Latin Tram Quartet
Four musicians from different musical backgrounds come together in the “Latin Tram Quartet,” a musical journey that blends jazz with the sounds of South American tradition.

Flyer passengers

Marco Valabrega
Marco Valabrega, a Roman violinist and violist, combines classical training with an ongoing exploration of folk music, focusing especially on Balkan, klezmer, and Middle Eastern traditions.

Clave de Son
The Clave de Son School, founded in Rome in 1995 by Irma Castillo and Ulises Mora, was created to spread knowledge of Cuban and Afro-Cuban folk dances.
Beyond teaching the technical aspects of rhythm, movement, and style, the school aims to share Cuban culture and history through live music, videos, meetings, and themed events.

Muddy Buddies
The Muddy Buddies are muddy companions—but also a sweet American treat made of crunchy cereal covered in chocolate, peanut butter, and sugar.
Listening to this trio feels like diving into a muddy, chocolaty river of roots blues, sticking your fingers in rich ballads, and finally glazing yourself head to toe in the glitter of 1940s Italian swing.
A musical journey with a nostalgic sound that is engaging, moving, and danceable.

Minimusicando!
A musical laboratory to play with bodies and explore voices. Intensity, rhythm, timbre and height will be the ingredients of our meeting. Edited by Valentina Musolino and Genea Manenti.

Sixtofunk
Sixtofunk is a band born from the meeting of professional musicians in the Roman busker scene.
Their style blends jazz standards with funk grooves, inspired by the streets of Trastevere, which also gave them their name.

Surprise Guest

Duostrano

Leonardo & Cristina
Leonardo and Cristina Elias, born in Mar del Plata and Rome respectively, met in tango after a multifaceted individual journey in the field of dance.

Trabelsi Coen
Leading exponents respectively of Jewish and Arab musical culture, the two musicians weave a dense musical dialogue that reveals the common roots of these two Mediterranean peoples, drawing on traditional music but also proposing their own original compositions that look to the world of modern jazz improvisation, world music, blues and rock.

Lavinia Mancusi with Mauro Menegazzi, Nicolò Pagani & Alessandro Luccioli
Lavinia Mancusi works in the fields of folk, world music, and theater, with various projects and prestigious collaborations with some of the most prominent figures on the Italian scene.

Daniele Corvasce
The trio led by Daniele Corvasce will pay tribute to the legendary guitarist Django Reinhardt, featuring iconic pieces like Minor Swing and Nuages, as well as hidden gems from his repertoire.
A Roman ensemble proudly carrying the gypsy jazz tradition in the capital, they are a gem of the gypsy jazz music scene.

May 9–12 at 6.30pm
Supernova is excited to invite you to a dynamic installation that explores the concept of temporality and perception.
A nearly transparent sphere, made of moving lines, suspended between appearing and disappearing.
A form with neither beginning nor end, it marks time through quick, confident strokes.

Lo Spaziosospeso is a transitional space, where nothing is what it was and nothing is yet what it will be.
Interaction with light and viewing angle alters the perception of suspension, reminding us that reality is subjective and unstable.
The work reflects on the contemporary human condition: a life in constant connection, suspended between past, present, and future, immersed in a continuous flow of information and images that blur the line between real and fictional.

Francesco Angelini
From 1968 to 2010, he taught Graphic Design and Photography at the Istituto d’Arte Roma1 – Museo Artistico Industriale.

Since 1968, he has been devoted to Visual Art, investigating its function and transformations in contemporary society.
He considers the school a “Workshop of Art,” the center of his activity. Following instinct and chance, he has built a vast archive of works in painting, sculpture, and design, participating in both national and international art exhibitions and events.
His method layers ideas and creations, from the microscopic to the monumental—this is the mystery of visual art.

His website: francescoangeliniartista.it

Monday, May 5 at 6.30pm

We invite you to a special meeting with Valerio Mieli, together we will discover his new book “Scelgo tutto” in dialogue with the public.

Valerio Mieli is an Italian director, screenwriter and writer. He is the winner of the David di Donatello and the Nastro d’argento 2009 for his first work “Dieci inverni” – the book “Omonimo” is from the same year – and the audience award at the Giornate degli Autori of the Venice Film Festival 2018 for the film Ricordi?, with Luca Marinelli

Tuesday at 6.30pm
We invite you to an evening together with artists Šummā Ālu & Hunter Longe.

A CRIT is a meeting in which artists present their work, “offering it” to a collective criticism. CRITS are based on the idea that group discussion can enhance the practice of the artist.

Together with CASTRO, an experimental learning program based in Rome, we will explore artists work and discuss together with the ones participating.

April 16 at 7.00pm

We invite you to our last literary evening within the exhibition “Primavera Silenziosa”

Comics told by those who make comics.
Six artists in dialogue discuss the graphic novels that have changed their lives.
Each meeting includes the participation of two illustrators to present the work of the authors who have trained, amazed, shocked, fascinated, inspired them.

Serena Schinaia Born in Taranto, she lives and works in Rome. She studied in Bologna, first Aesthetic Philosophy, then Illustration and Comics Languages.

Serena Schinaia
Her drawings have appeared in several national and international anthologies and she has exhibited her stories at important Italian comics festivals such as Bilbolbul and Napoli Comicon. She has collaborated with Lo Straniero, Hamelin, the Goethe Institut, the Real Academia de España en Roma and international independent publishing companies such as Kuš!, Stripburger, Komikaze, Ediciones Valientes.

Antonio Pronostico
Antonio Pronostico, born in Tricarico in 1987, is an illustrator and cartoonist. He studied Visual Arts in Florence and now lives in Rome.
He works for the publishing and magazine market, creating comics, covers and posters

Together with Fulvio Risuleo he created the comics Sniff (Coconino Press – 2019), Cinque – Giovanni Truppi (anthology Coconino Press – 2019), Tango (Coconino Press – 2021) and L’Eletto (Coconino Press – 2023).

Join us for a workshop with Jesse Jones on the 11th of april at 6.30pm!

Using oyster shells from the Atlantic coast and Irish tea leaves, participants will be guided through a ritual of tea leaf reading rooted in feminist history, psychic practices, and embodied storytelling.

Working in pairs, you’ll select a shell, share tea, and read each other’s leaves—unlocking symbols, shapes, and shared enchantments.
No prior experience needed. Materials provided.

April 9 at 7pm

Comics told by those who make comics
Six artists in conversation reflect on the graphic novels that changed their lives.
Each event features two illustrators presenting the work of the authors who shaped, amazed, shocked, fascinated, or inspired them.

Serena Schinaia
Serena Schinaia, born in Taranto, lives and works in Rome. She studied in Bologna, first Aesthetic Philosophy, then Illustration and Comics Language.
Her drawings have appeared in various national and international anthologies, and her stories have been exhibited at major Italian comics festivals such as Bilbolbul and Napoli Comicon. She has collaborated with Lo Straniero, Hamelin, the Goethe-Institut, the Real Academia de España en Roma, and international independent publishers such as Kuš!, Stripburger, Komikaze, and Ediciones Valientes.

Antonio Pronostico
Antonio Pronostico, born in Tricarico in 1987, is an illustrator and comic artist.
He studied Visual Arts in Florence and now lives in Rome.
He works in publishing and editorial illustration, creating comics, covers, and posters.
Together with Fulvio Risuleo, he created the comics Sniff (Coconino Press – 2019), Cinque – Giovanni Truppi (Coconino Press anthology – 2019), Tango (Coconino Press – 2021), and L’Eletto (Coconino Press – 2023).

April 4-5 at 6.30 pm

Where do our feelings live?
What moves our thoughts, our actions?
How do we get in touch with our deepest nature?

THE LABYRINTH is a dive into the imaginary world, the possibility of a poetic and transcendent encounter with oneself, an experience that lives in the relationship between the traveler (audience) and the inhabitant (actor-performer), inspired by stories with strong symbolism that hide the keys to inhabiting existence. The performance unfolds in an immersive journey in which the sensorial theatrical language meets that of the fantastic imagination.

Fairy tales, plots of consciousness, represent a precious and secret instrument of knowledge and transformation, a net thrown to capture elusive truths and flashes of emotions.
Passed down orally for centuries, they have that ancient flavor that speaks to the soul of those who listen.
The truth of fairy tales is the reality of our imagination. That same imagination that allows us to invent ourselves and the world, determining choices, overcoming limits, following new directions, reaching goals.

Based on this, IL LABIRINTO proposes a scenic rhythm that reawakens the fairy-tale ritual, so that the traveler can take up the pen of his soul and write his story.

If you have booked for more than one person, we recommend that you forward this message to them too.

We recommend arriving 15 minutes before the start as it will not be possible to access once the journey has begun.

We look forward to seeing you at Spazio Supernova, Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere 1a, Rome

2nd of April at 7pm
Comics Told by Those Who Make Comics

Six artists in conversation discuss the graphic novels that changed their lives.
Each event features two illustrators presenting the work of the authors who shaped, amazed, challenged, fascinated, and inspired them.

Serena Schinaia

Born in Taranto, she lives and works in Rome. She studied in Bologna, first Aesthetic Philosophy, then Illustration and Comic Languages.
Her drawings have appeared in various national and international anthologies, and she has exhibited her stories at major Italian comic festivals such as Bilbolbul and Napoli Comicon. She has collaborated with Lo Straniero, Hamelin, the Goethe Institut, the Real Academia de España en Roma, and independent international publishers like Kuš!, Stripburger, Komikaze, and Ediciones Valientes.

Antonio Pronostico

Born in Tricarico in 1987, he is an illustrator and comic artist.
He studied Visual Arts in Florence and now lives in Rome. He works in the publishing and magazine industry, creating comics, covers, and posters.
Together with Fulvio Risuleo, he has created the comics Sniff (Coconino Press – 2019), Cinque – Giovanni Truppi (Coconino Press – 2019 anthology), Tango (Coconino Press – 2021), and L’Eletto (Coconino Press – 2023).

1st of April at 7pm
Readings from the book La Debuttante by Leonora Carrington introduced by Tara Londi.

The Debutante – Leonora Carrington
The Debutante is a surreal and darkly humorous short story by British-Mexican artist and writer Leonora Carrington. It follows a young woman who despises high-society life and befriends a hyena. When she refuses to attend her own debutante ball, the hyena takes her place—with grotesque consequences. The story blends absurdity, satire, and gothic horror, reflecting Carrington’s fascination with transformation and the macabre.

About the Author
Leonora Carrington, a British-born artist, writer, and key figure in the Surrealist movement. Expelled from debutante society herself, she rebelled against convention and moved to Paris, where she became involved with Surrealists like Max Ernst. After a turbulent escape from Nazi-occupied France and time in a mental institution, she settled in Mexico, where she thrived as a painter and writer. Her work often explores themes of magic, mythology, and feminist autonomy.

Saturday 29th, 4.00-6.30 pm
Sunday 30th, 10.00-12.30 pm

This weekend we are hosting a two-day creative workshop for children with Alice Casana, as part of the Silent Spring exhibition. In this 4th edition, children will be able to unleash their creativity by creating their own kite. Don’t miss this artistic and fun experience to celebrate Spring!

To reserve your place, send an email to: info@spazio-supernova.com (max 10 children per appointment, 5-12 years old)

21st of March at 6.30pm until 22nd of April

Primavera Silenziosa (Silent Spring) transforms the gallery into an immersive space exploring the intersection of science writing, storytelling, and speculative fiction, inspired by Rachel Carson’s poetic approach to science. The exhibition highlights Joan Jonas’s Double Lunar Dogs (1984), a prophetic video set in a forgotten space mission, alongside a curated library featuring works by Rachel Carson, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Donna Haraway. Irish artist Jesse Jones presents The Edge of the Sea, inscribed Atlantic oysters activated through a performance on divination, while Romana Londi’s Lullaby, To The Tick of Two Clocks and her Jet-Lag: Sentient series examine perception, memory, and the limits of human experience.

20th of March at 6.30pm
RSVP by sending an email to: info@spazio-supernova.com

Laura Accerboni’s poetry has much of water: quiet, peaceful, yet ready to rise with an unexpected power, a primordial force both creative and destructive, gentle and cruel. And in her verses, there is also the mutable and protean nature of the liquid element, which by definition has no shape of its own, adapting each time to the object that contains it—vase, bottle, crater, riverbed, or ocean floor.

The texts of Il prima e il dopo dell’acqua (Einaudi, Turin, 2024) embody the mutability of the human soul, revealing the eternal surprise that awaits us when we discover a new facet of our inner depths—whether it be the need to reshape our homes and our coexistence during the pandemic or to rethink unsuspected aspects of the human soul, which perhaps we ourselves would prefer to keep hidden.

Like the corals and anemones that color the seabed, Laura Accerboni’s words trace the hidden geometry of human existence beneath the liquid yet not always transparent veil of water.

28th of February at 7pm
RSVP by sending an email to: info@spazio-supernova.com

We invite you to the third edition of Cineart.
Join us for an evening of films that explore art, photography, and creative expression in unexpected ways. From an improvised portrait of Alexis Ross to the underground world of Hamburger Eyes, and from Niki de Saint Phalle’s words in Love Letter to the visionary work of Sister Corita in Become A Microscope, these films offer a unique glimpse into artistic lives and legacies. Short, striking, and full of inspiration—don’t miss it!

The curator
Aaron Rose is a fine artist, writer and director with a keen eye for unexpected and moving visuals. Often shot on film, Rose’s work gravitates toward a stylistic realism, often with multimedia elements. An independent curator of contemporary art for more than three decades, Rose has produced exhibitions for galleries and museums worldwide, including street art retrospective “Art In The Streets” and “Beautiful Losers”: which highlighted artists that popularized 1990s DIY street art. He also co-directed Beautiful Losers (2008) a feature length documentary inspired by the exhibits. It premiered at the 2008 SXSW Film Festival. He is also currently in production on a narrative feature. Rose is represented by the Los Angeles production company Directors Bureau, founded by Roman Coppola and also representing filmmakers Wes Anderson and Sofia Coppola.

Opening February 20 18:30-21:30
Performance 19:00 and 20:30

We invite you to the exhibition NEI CALANCHI DELLA VISIONE by Antonio Della Guardia, curated by Niccolò Giacomazzi.

The exhibition NEI CALANCHI DELLA VISIONE presents a performance and an installation. The unpublished performance “Know not to be” is part of a much larger ongoing performative project, as an evolution and continuation of the first presentation in Argentina, at the MEC museum in Còrdoba and at the Cultural Institution of San Miguel de Tucumán on the occasion of BIENALSUR.
Meanwhile, the installation “Per delle pratiche di nuova realtà” is a project that began in 2021 and on this occasion focused exclusively on the city of Rome, collecting 7 places that have most impressed the artist over the last 10 years.

The performance will be performed on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6:30 pm and on Saturdays at 11:00 am, until March 8, 2025. The exhibition will close on March 16.

Performers: Claudia Tomaino, Serena Zaccagnini
Sound designer: Gabriel Fischer

31st of January at 7.30pm

Supernova is excited to present two short films directed by two Syrian artists ⁠”3350km” by Sara Kontar and “Fatme” by Diala Alhindawi.

This project is curated by Sircle Studio, a platform dedicated to share stories and cultural heritage bequeathed by women. For this encounter Sarah Jade will host the talk alongside Sara Kontar.

About 3350 km
“3350 km” is a short documentary, but also a brief and personal investigation into the Syrian experience and the relationship between exile and homeland, between my father and the director Diala Al hindawi,, the stranger abroad and the stranger within. All that connects us is a choppy sound through which we try to be together.

About “Fatme”
Fatmé, 11 years old, Syrian, lives in Lebanon with her family. Her disheveled hair, dirty clothes, and love for fighting are subjects of discussion among those around her. Her mother wonders: Is she a girl or a boy? To this question, Fatmé responds with laughter, “I just want to be the strongest.”

To RSVP send an email to info@spazio-supernova.com

Thursday 23rd of January at 8pm
RSVP by sending an email to: info@spazio-supernova.com

Join us for the screening of Mulholland Drive, a psychological thriller directed by David Lynch. The film follows an amnesiac woman and an aspiring actress as they navigate the mysteries of Hollywood, blending reality and dreams in an enigmatic narrative.

David Lynch
David Lynch is an American filmmaker, visual artist, and musician known for his surreal and often unsettling works. Born on January 20, 1946, in Missoula, Montana, Lynch gained fame for creating films that blend dreamlike imagery with dark psychological themes. His notable works include Eraserhead (1977), Blue Velvet (1986), and Twin Peaks (1990), a groundbreaking television series. Lynch’s style, often called “Lynchian,” is characterized by its use of non-linear narratives, haunting soundscapes, and exploration of the subconscious.

Tod Williams
Tod Williams, also known as Kip Williams, is an American filmmaker known for his character-driven dramas and horror films. Born in New York City in 1968, he studied at Bard College and the American Film Institute. His notable works include The Door in the Floor (2004), an adaptation of John Irving’s novel, and Paranormal Activity 2 (2010), which expanded the popular horror franchise.

21st of January at 7pm

For the third and final night of our Book Club’s first edition, we invite you back to Supernova to conclude our exploration of The Vegetarian by Han Kang. Join us as curator Annabelle Hirsch leads a discussion on the book’s intricate themes of identity, autonomy, transformation and desire. Whether you’ve been with us from the start or are joining for the finale, we look forward to your insights. Don’t forget to finish reading the book before the event!

Photographic exhibition by Emanuele Artenio opening on the 20th of December at 6pm.

The show will be open until the 4th of January 2025.

Supernova is happy to host the show “Noantri” by Emanuele Artenio.

Trastevere is a shared story. A story of belonging and uniqueness. But not even here can time be stopped. It rushes forward, leaving behind the last traces of a place lived intensely.

“Noantri” is a journey into the last village within Rome. A neighborhood that was once home to actors and poets, sailors and rogues. Through the streets and faces of “noi altri”—the Trasteverini who have always distinguished themselves from the rest of the city: “voi altri,” you who live in other districts. With these shots, I narrate places, glimpses, faces, and traditions, but above all, people. Gazes, hands, wrinkles—those few who were born and raised in Trastevere and still live there. But they are disappearing. In front of my lens, “noantri” seems unchanged, yet for some faces and places, it has become a race against time. While this project developed, historic shops closed; some Trasteverini passed away, even among those who welcomed me into their homes and businesses, taking me back in time, well beyond my own memories.

In Fausto Tozzi’s film Trastevere (1971), sor Alfredo, a bartender, tells a customer from northern Italy: “Once, this was like a village. Now it’s become a port of call… foreigners and artists come, paying a fortune for houses… and the Trasteverini slowly leave.” Not by chance, the screenplay was titled Requiem for Trastevere. These words, echoing through the alleys and squares for more than 50 years, describe a reality that now seems imminent and perhaps unavoidable. Between 2001 and 2019, the resident population decreased by 15.3%; one in three residents is now a foreigner. To the quick glances of tourists or passersby, Trastevere appears striking, luminous, captivating. Its alleys are free postcards; its trattorias and taverns promise delights to all. But the tourist-heavy, nightlife-filled district is on the verge of swallowing the historic neighborhood, erasing its identity and soul—the very qualities that made it famous.

“Noantri” is not a nostalgic tale of what once was. I want to show what remains today of Trastevere’s essence—the intimate story of the people who lived it and are its witnesses. I sought it in the alleys, among cars and laundry lines, in homes, in old shops, or in cellars, trying to capture its true nature a moment before it vanishes.

17th December at 7pm

After a successful first night of the Book Club at Supernova, we now invite you to part 2 of the first edition. For the second appointment we will continue discussing desire with our curator Annabelle Hirsch. Make sure to read the book before attending the event.

December 12, 2024, from 3pm to 6pm
Followed by a public aperitif with a sharing of the sweet creations made during the workshop.

Synopsis:
In Italian popular culture, cakes and cookies are often crafted in the shape of female body parts, like the traditional Pupa Abruzzese.

Grossi Maglioni’s large installation, showcased at Supernova, draws inspiration from this traditional sweet, reimagining it as a large silhouette of a woman with three breasts, three vaginas, and three legs.

Drawing from and deconstructing our memory of this sweet, we imagine new forms to tell stories of our pleasure and desire.

The Grossi Maglioni workshop will guide participants in creating new sweets during the afternoon at Supernova.

This walk will take you on the trail of characters who have distorted gender and sexual norms that we can find in the Trastevere area of Rome, either because they lived there or because their representations still populate this neighborhood. We will encounter religious, spiritual figures, as well as others that are extremely earthly, who did not enjoy fame in their time and have been systematically erased from history.” 

Dani Martiri is an independent curator. In 2021, they founded the outreach project ‘Queering Rome’ to discuss Rome through a feminist queer lens. Since 2023, they have been part of the Working Group ‘Gender and LGBTQ+ Rights’ of ICOM Italy, where they focus on promoting queer museology in the country.

Thursday 21st of November at 6.30pm

Join us for a bilingual English-Italian reading that brings together new voices in American, British, and Italian literature. This event will feature the current writers-in-residence at the Giancarlo DiTrapano Foundation for Literature and the Arts alongside special guest authors from Rome and Florence.

This unique literary evening is organized in collaboration with Spazio Supernova and Chiara Barzini. In a nod to PUPA — the current exhibition at Spazio Supernova by the artistic duo Grossi Maglioni (curated by Dorotheé Dupuis) — the readings will explore the theme “material and symbolic bodies.

Foundation Resident Readers:
Raegan Bird
Thomas Thatcher
Harriet Armstrong
Madeline Cash

Special guest readers:
Francesca Marciano
Tiziana Lo Porto
Elizabeth Geoghegan 
Will Schutt 
Athena Kokoronis
Sara Reggiani

The talk on 16th of November:
A conversation with Grossi Maglioni (exhibiting artists), Clovis Maillet (fellow at the Villa Medici, French Academy in Rome), Lex Brown, and Sheila Pepe (Rome Prize fellows at the American Academy in Rome). Curated and moderated by Dorothée Dupuis.

The event will begin with a brief presentation (in English and Italian) by the artists on their respective research, followed by a discussion that will expand on themes explored in Grossi Maglioni’s show. This conversation seeks to foster a broader reflection on bodies—particularly female, but not exclusively—their complex relationship to materiality and symbolism, their capacity to be born and to die, to experience joy and suffering, to be uniquely individual and simultaneously intertwined with the collective fabric of society.

The title of the talk is drawn from Clovis Maillet’s research, which will be explored further during the event, inviting us to engage with the water/earth metaphor that plays a significant role in the Pupa exhibition. We hope this conversation will uncover essential elements for creating feminist (and broadly political) art today. Audience participation is warmly encouraged.

About the artists:
Clovis Maillet is a French historian and artist whose collaborative work often explores gender themes through performance and research-based projects rooted in feminist and trans issues.
Sheila Pepe, known for her postminimalist and queer abstraction background, now creates public sculptures that critique patriarchal traditions, drawing on Rome’s rich art history.
Lex Brown is a video and performance artist who merges satire, music, and social critique in her “Soap Operetta” genre, inspired by Italian opera and commedia dell’arte. Each artist integrates history, society, and critical reflection into their work. Together, they challenge traditional narratives and explore themes of identity, societal structures, and artistic expression.

Opening 14th of November at 5pm until 18th of December. Opening hours: Monday to Friday, 5pm-20pm

In Italian, pupa means a doll, and it can refer to a real doll or a woman/girl. But Pupa is also the title of a new project by the Italian, Roma-based artistic duo Grossi Maglioni: “Born within the project, which investigates the representation of women and motherhood in contemporary culture, Pupa marks the beginning of a new research that links the sweet to the idea of love and female sexuality through an investigation of Italian popular traditions. In this project, which includes workshops, installations and a video, we want to reflect on the sexual models handed down within the patriarchal family through the generations, on pleasure, folklore and myths of femininity related to ritual food and the earth.”

PUPA present a whole new body of works by Grossi Maglioni, a workshop led by the artists, and a talk series with Clovis Maillet, Lex Brown and Sheila Pepe. The show and talk series borrow the title of Grossi Maglionis videowork present in the show, to engage in a wider reflection about the (female but not only) bodies, their paradoxical relationshop to materiality and symbolism, their power to be born and die, to enjoy and to suffer, to be ineluctably one’s own and at the same time the intertwined flesh of all members of society. PUPA is a show curated by Dorothée Dupuis, ex-pensionnaire 2022-2023 at the French Academy in Rome, Villa Medici. Dupuis is a curator, publisher and art historian based in Mexico City. She is the Director and Founder Temblores Publicaciones.

GROSSI MAGLIONI (Francesca Grossi and Vera Maglioni, Rome, 1982) began their collaboration in 2006. Their work is mostly focused within performance, installation and educational practices. Their work has been exhibited in galleries, museums and academic institutions, including: Palais Carli, Marseille; Fondazione Baruchello, Rome; Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Lissone; Picture Gallery, Kaunas; <rotor> center for contemporary art, Graz: Kunsthalle Bratislava; Istituto Svizzero, Rome; AlbumArte, Rome; American Academy, Rome; Viafarini, Milan; MACRO, Rome; Verkstad för konst, Norrköping; Konsthall museum, Vasa

Talk series curated by Dorothée Dupuis: November 16, 2024 at 12pm
Grossi Maglioni’s workshop: December 14, 2024
Queering Rome Tour, November 23, 2024

Following up the successful Cineclub Supernova is now introducing its first Book Club with a total of four editions. The first will be held by the author Annabelle Hirsch and the books that will be discussed are:

November 5: MIRANDA JULY All Fours
December 17: ANNIE ERNAUX Simple Passion
January 21: HAN KANG The Vegetarian

Annabelle Hirsch, born in 1986, has German and French roots. She studied art history and dramatics in Munich and Paris, and works as a cultural journalist for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and various other magazines. She translates French literature and is the author of „A History of Women in 101 Objects“ and „Der Teller“. She lives between Rome and Berlin.

After the success of the collage in the square for children, Supernova is pleased to invite you to the collage evening for adults introduced by Alice Casana. This time we experiment with erotic images taken from retro magazines.

Monday 21st at 7:30 pm.

To reserve your place send an email to: info@spazio-supernova.com

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.