The exhibitions
GALAVERNA
sculptures by MASSIMO SACCHETTI
4th july 2024 – 10th november 2024
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In Massimo Sacchetti's art, nature is the source and the instrument that shapes his works. The artist sees the passing of time and the changing of the seasons as the material and suggestion, the chisel and the hand that shape the sculptures. This is where “Galaverna” comes from: an atmospheric phenomenon that occurs between late winter and early spring when the temperature drops and the frost creates real natural crystals, fleeting and fragile yet extraordinary natural shapes, fragments of ice that settle on the branches, on the grass, creating a natural geography of fairytale, dreamlike colours.
The artist's inspiration stems from these visions and the desire to capture a phenomenon that would otherwise only be ephemeral by artificially setting this natural spectacle on larch wood.
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Fragments of stories from the Children's Institute of the Province of Turin
A better life.
Fragments of stories from the Children's Institute of the Province of Turin
curated by Alessandro Bulgini
in collaboration with Città Metropolitana di Torino
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The project presented at Flashback Habitat in Corso Giovanni Lanza 75 in Turin, whose title is A Better Life. Fragments of Stories from the Institute for Children of the Province of Turin is not to be considered an exhibition but rather an artwork and an act of love. A. Bulgini
The project aims to give voice to that multitude of worlds that have intertwined in the halls of the structure, a former orphanage in Turin, through glimpses of the stories of some of the protagonists who, firsthand, have experienced that place like the children, now adults, the nannies, the employees. The exhibition, curated by the artist and director of Flashback Habitat Alessandro Bulgini, aims to be a collective work, a choral work where history, emotions, art and life intertwine. An exhibition that tells intimate and personal stories, but incredibly universal because they are linked to concepts that touch us closely such as birth, family, identity, through original fragments, collected thanks to the collaboration of those who were there at the time, documents recovered in the historical archives of the Province of Turin and direct testimonies. The exhibition aims to be a complex, human, social and above all artistic fresco, which enhances everyone's lives by making them works of art, in the spirit and poetics of Flashback Habitat.
The exhibition is spread over the rooms on the third floor of Pavilion B in Corso Lanza. Each room wants to be a microworld where you can immerse yourself and enter the stories told. Personal and universal narratives at the same time, collective works that speak of life. Each room consists of audio-video portraits of the "natives" who answer the question "Can you tell me?" and they do it in profile: a position that suggests turning outside, elsewhere or perhaps towards another self. The talking portraits are accompanied by components dating back to a photographic exhibition on site set up when the orphanage closed. Finally, each room is enriched with a map-story with stratifications of meanings thanks to photographs and documents from public and private archives.
The IPI, inaugurated in 1958 by President Gronchi, every year hosted about three hundred boys and girls awaiting adoption, often born in corso Lanza 75, and then given up for adoption, generally before the age of three. Today many of those children, who have become adults, frequent the place and the activities of Flashback Habitat, recognizing their origins, their first home in Corso Lanza, enriching the new life of the place itself with stories and emotions.
works by local artists are integrated into the ecosystem.
Artist's Light
Mater - Ex Istituto per l’Infanzia della Provincia di Torino
artwork by Alessandro Bulgini
Insegna sagomata a lettere piane in alluminio verniciato,
illuminazione flex led - 10mx2,78m
Roof of pav.C
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As part of the project Luci d'Artista - Constellations, the work by Alessandro Bulgini Mater arrived at the headquarters of Flashback Habitat in 2023. Installed on the roof of Pad C and visible from Corso Vittorio Emanuele II and Porta Nuova station, the work is dedicated to those born more than forty years ago in the current location of Flashback Habitat, a former childcare institute of the Province of Turin that was active until the 1980s. The luminous sign stands out on the roof of the oldest and tallest villa of the former institute, becoming a beacon in the darkness.
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The story of this work begins when Alessandro Bulgini (artist and current artistic director of Flashback Habitat) entered the former Institute for Children of the Province of Turin at Corso Giovanni Lanza 75, a space entrusted to Flashback Association. The story of this place began in 1953, when the Province decided to open the Institute to meet the needs created by mass immigration and the large number of women forced to leave their children in foster care. They were housed in this space for 30 years and then, due to the overthrow of the system, the space was closed. Once aware of the story of this place, he decided to take action and give those who were born here a space where they could meet again. From the very first contact, he took on the role of guide of this place, taking them into every nook and cranny of the four buildings, bringing back memories and suggestions so familiar with them.
“When they come back here, at Flashback Habitat, some of them touch the walls in search of the pictorial stratification that was present at their birth. That's why, as time went on, I began to think that the mother was still present through her absence. The walls become the epidermis of this place. It was as if the mother(s) had left their own mark in the short time they were here. For this simple but profound reason, I wanted to give her to give a clear, visible indication, a sign that would bring light to a desire."
Alessandro Bulgini.
works by local artists are integrated into the ecosystem.
Vivarium [der. from Latin Vivo] is a project born in 2022, when Flashback entered the spaces of Corso Giovanna Lanza, a complex abandoned for ten years, giving life to Flashback Habitat, Ecosystem for Contemporary Cultures.
The powerful 9,000m2 green area hosts Vivarium, an artistic park in progress, alive and in constant metamorphosis. The works of art are inserted into the space to remain and "take root", giving life to a harmonious fusion where everything that conforms comes from the dialogue between the artist and the habitat. In the natural environment composed of history and people, Flashback adopts the works that artists leave in the ecosystem's care.
The first work to be included was Roots pipeline (2022) by Francesca Casale, a site-specific olfactory installation of 60 meters of pipeline, a symbol of metamorphosis of the roots that nourish the place and create a profound territorial history, while the smell of talcum powder takes us back to the original spaces, those of the orphanage of the Province of Turin. Francesca Casale is an artist, herbalist by training and specialized in olfactory art. His artistic research focuses on the relationship between the visible and the invisible. For her, reality usually has a smell and recreating it is nothing more than searching for it in the unconscious.
In April 2023, Sedie nello spazio (1995) by Fabio Cascardi was also added, an installation in steel and anti-noise paint. For this sculpture the artist chooses to give new life to waste or recycled materials, chairs adapted and extended in height, take on new, almost surreal values, capable of transmitting completely new messages and meanings.
Fabio Cascardi attended the Scenography and Sculpture courses at the Albertina Academy in Turin and already during his academic period he adopted research and experimentation parameters with plastic materials, including expanded polyurethane which allowed him to share and develop a long collaboration with the artist and master Piero Gilardi.
Mushroom Forest (2023) also arrives in September with the artist Michel Vecchi, who using wood and trunks recovered from the park, gives life to colorful mushrooms of surprise, magic and curiosity. There is no forest without the scent of mushrooms, there is no forest that does not convey the sense of growth and protection. Trees and mushrooms, like brothers and life companions, nourish and care for each other. Each plant has a history and a soul imprinted in the wood. Each Michel mushroom has a special power, in the stem and below, at the base, a spiral of copper and aluminum turns which transmits and conducts this power to the people and places where it is placed.
Michel Vecchi is an artist from Aosta Valley who lives and works in Ibiza.
Finally, Luisa Raffaelli recently completed the work Tout se tient (2023), a structure that acts as a harness for a specific area of the park. The metaphorical protection is made up of innocent tubes that convey a sense of care, protection and safety, colored in gold to underline the protective function. Everything is contrasted with the access to that point which instead appears like an intricate cage, while a long bamboo cane painted blue seems to carry water to quench the thirst of the earth. This contrast arises from Raffaelli's reading of the experience of the orphanage, in which welcome, closure, protection and solitude alternated according to the artist's reading.
Luisa Raffaelli is an artist and architect from Turin who works with photography, drawing and video, often combined in an installation dimension. He has worked with several Italian galleries, exhibiting in public and private spaces.
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