The exhibitions
marriage stories
Portraits of the immigration in Barriera
1st may 2024 – 29 september 2024
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In the physical and geographical shift from south to north Italy lies all the hope and desire for new beginnings. Storie di Matrimoni (Marriage Stories) focuses on one of the most populous, stratified and lively neighbourhoods in Turin: Barriera di Milano. There lies the universality of the story, of the history of the West from the post-war period to the present and of the migration of entire populations in search of new opportunities, a breakthrough that only the modernity of metropolitan cities could promise. "Storie di matrimoni", as the title suggests, is the representation of a particular moment in life through photographs. Powerful and beautiful images that evoke all the tenderness and emotion of an unforgettable moment: the wedding. From silver salt prints to sepia portraits, from black and white to the advent of colour, the history of photography is told alongside wedding stories. Over time, photography has become an indispensable source and witness to the union not only of two people, but also of two family groups. The portraits take us through the evolution of the medium and the techniques used since the 1950s, when the ceremony was an official celebration and the wait for the photo album was exciting. The couples pose solemnly, sometimes with serious expressions that underline the formality of the event. The attention to detail, from the dresses to the floral arrangements to the bride and groom's complicit looks, is entrusted to professionals. At the time, the camera was a privileged tool, and hiring a professional was a luxury for the few. Photographers, experts in the medium, were asked to preserve forever the memory of a great family event. The history of photography evolves and brings us to the present, an era in which the wedding is an increasingly festive event, more easily digitised and filmed, not only by the photographer, but by all the guests.
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"This exhibition confirms our interest in the relationship between art and life and was created as an opportunity to talk about immigration in the Barriera di Milano district. Among the many experiences that have taken place in Turin in recent years, dedicated entirely to Barriera di Milano, we have once again chosen a part of the city that is very representative of its cultural mix"
claims Alessandro Bulgini, artistic director.
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There will also be an interactive space, a room dedicated to the participation of the public, who will be able to entrust a photo of their own wedding.
The result will be the construction of a collective, shared, choral photo album.
Storie di Matrimoni (Marriage Stories) is about people and human relationships; about art and life. Just by looking around, yoy can discover the complex and multifaceted representation of a city, of a district, and of the people who have lived and still live there, creating an anthropological and folkloric portrait.
INSURRECTIONS
PHOTOS OF A PROTEST
1ST march 2024 – 2ND june 2024
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The exhibition showcases three activists, each identified with their own symbol and way of documenting the insurrections. The aim of the exhibition is to highlight the dif ference between supporting an ideology and taking action in order to make a change in the world.
Our gaze constantly shifts from the United States Capitol attack to the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong and the occupation of Wounded Knee. Chris Suspect, Enrico Gili and Angelo Quattrocchi’s street photography captures different protests and offers a “heretical” (from the Greek αá¼±ρετικÏŒς, ‘the one who chooses’) perspecti ve of the world. Through their lens, we are invited to question our responsibilities as members of a community
Chris Suspect realised he was a documentary photographer when his friends told him “hey, your street photography is really good”. This realisation sparked his curiosity and motivated him to study the works of great photographers. Today, he is an award-winning photographer known for his exceptional ability to capture the profound and sometimes absurd reality of everyday life. On the 6th of January, in 2021, during the Capitol Hill attack in the U.S., Suspect was there, at the right time, in the right place. He wanted to tell that story. Suspect risked his life to document the anger and exuberance of Donald Trump’s supporters. The Capitol Hill photographs are part of a larger project. It is divided into four thematic rooms that follow a chronological path, much like the chapters of a saga: Election Night, 4 Years of Protest, Biden Wins, January 6 and Epilogue (Biden inauguration). Chris Suspect described the atmosphere on that day as hectic, due to tear gas in the air and concerns about being identified as media, which would make him an enemy of Trump. Despite these challenges, he felt a strong desire to witness and document an event of unprecedented scale. His black-and-white images evoke the backstage atmosphere of Hollywood films. The references include the fascist Civil War, action movies with special forces and films by Coppola, Stone, and Tarantino, each telling a different facet of American history. Chris Suspect’s photographs capture a historical moment in a highly destabilised political situation. The shots masterfully convey America’s uncontrolled expressive will.
Chris Suspect
Path to insurrection
curated by Jacopo Buranelli
Enrico Gili
YELLOW! A PACIFIC REVOLUTION BEHIND AN UMBRELLA
HONG KONG 2014 – 2019
curated by Patrizia Bottallo
What is the meaning of a yellow umbrella in Hong Kong? The symbol embodies both peace and defence, as reflected in its shape and colour. Yellow is indeed a bold and recognisable colour and at that time it represented thousands of protesters demanding democracy and universal suffrage. The streets were crowded with people, amidst fatigue, danger, acts of anger and conviction, but also of brotherho od and humanity. However, the local authorities responded with restraint and repression. Enrico Gili’s solo show features incredible pictures that have never been released before. The Asian government attempted to limit the distribution of these images and videos by labelling them as ‘illegal actions’. Truncheons and tear gas were used to curb dissent and repress the protest. However, this did not stop a multitude of people from peacefully protesting for their rights in the centre of Hong Kong. Enrico Gili’s photographs are spontaneous yet purposeful in design. During the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong, Gili did not take random pictures: he had a specific idea of what he wanted to document, following a precise narrative approach. His photographs always convey a particular story through the relationship and interaction between the elements of the composition. This correlation is not necessarily physical, but rather comes from human relationships, interactions between people or objects, or even between a subject and its location. Enrico Gili’s pictures are snapshots of reality, documenting society in all its forms and nuances. During his time in the former British co lony, Gili immersed himself in the life of the metropolis, capturing its moods, smells, colours and intensity. He aimed to represent the city in all its nuances, having absorbed, interpreted, and internalised its essence.
Angelo Quattrocchi
WOUNDED KNEE - Indians to the rescue
curated by Lapo Simeoni
Angelo Quattrocchi was an Italian journalist, writer and activist. WOUNDED KNEE - Indiani alla riscossa is the story, through photographs, documents and texts of the occupation, siege and defence of Wounded Knee, a remote village on the Indian reservation. In 1973, Quattrocchi lived in San Francisco and worked for L.A. Free Press and The Barbour, a local newspaper. It was an underground environment, full of writers, musicians and artists creating a vibrant atmosphere. At the beginning of February, he received news that the Native Americans at the Wounded Knee reservation were planning to revolt against the injustices they had endured. He promptly travelled to North America to document the events. This soon turned into an occupation against the besieged Americans. It was a seventy-day war in which a few warriors armed with old rifles fought against FBI agents, Indian police, CIA operatives and tanks.
“This is the day-by-day account of the occupation, siege and defence of Wounded Knee. During the 70-day war, a small group of warriors armed with old rifles fought against a thousand FBI agents, the Indian police (made up of renegades), the CIA, the tanks... the tanks… It was the redemption of the Indian people, the most beautiful - and most oppressed - people in the world. It was a great moment when the Indians turned the page of history and threw themselves to the rescue (all the newspapers in the world were talking about it)... And they have been fighting ever since, against the white man, to be free and to be a community”.
This is the beginning of the book and story by Angelo Quattrocchi
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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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