"No words - no war / A Poli-focal interactive installation" at Carinarnica – bivak urbane kulture, Nova Gorica (Slovenia)



 
Press release

Opening: February, Friday 17th at 6.00 p.m., at Carinarnica – bivak urbane kulture, Erjavčeva 53, 5000 Nova Gorica, Slovenia (Carinarnica is situated on the border between Italy and Slovenia).
Opening hours: from 17th February 2017 to 3rd March 2017; from Monday to Friday, from 02:00 p.m. to 05:00 p.m. Free entry.

IoDeposito Ngo, with patronage of UNESCO, unveils on Friday 17th February at ore 6.00 p.m. the exhibition NO WORDS – NO WAR / A Poli-focal interactive installation by Natalia Tikhonova, at Carinarnica -bivak urbane kulture. In the evocative location in Nova Gorica, a new laboratory and meeting point of urban cultures, it will be accommodated the series of the Russian artist's optical installations, until the 3rd March 2017: from Monday to Friday, from 02:00 p.m. to 05:00 p.m. Tikhonova's works of art are focused on the return of the war's human and sensory dimension. Thanks to an innovative employment of historical photos and chromatic filters, the artist could reach meanings and feelings that sometimes have been pushed aside in historical books and essays: wars were made by humans against humans and so, among dates and reports of conquests, there are death, dismay, incredulity above all.

The fil-rouge of the Tikhonova's project is that our mind can condition the perception of war until making it something distant, ephemeral and non-existent. Memory and imagination in fact are able to erase not only certain details, but also to make us forget the human presence and components of war, offering an illusory image, erasing the drama of death and leaving only a memory of a desert natural scenography. This reaction, nearly to distance oneself from the harsh reality, is revealed in the series of optical installations by Nathalia Tikhonova with a game of filters that, among the blacks and greys of ancient photos, makes appear and disappear bloody and evanescent figures of soldiers: the legacy of war are read therefore through the colours, made of bright red (which presage) and dense gray (which bewail).
The descriptive language of chromaticism needs no other explanations because is able itself to tell about who has lost everything, even life, in the Russian front (which becomes a universal symbol). In this way, the artist invites the viewer to get in touch with the war's experience through the observation from different perspectives.

Carinarnica, which was inaugurated last year by Društvo humanistov goriške Carinarnica, amplifies this artistic experience because is a very significant location: the border house on the border which split the city of Gorizia in two after the Second World War. The street where is nowadays situated the urban cultural centre is half Italian (San Gabriele street, Gorizia) and half  Slovenian (Erjavčeva ulica, Nova Gorica) and so, it brings in itself a huge symbolic meaning. The exhibition belongs to the third edition of the diffuse artistic and cultural Festival B#SIDE WAR, which is promoted by IoDeposito through numerous Italian and international events such as exhibitions, conferences and research project (www.bsidewar.org).

Contacts:
Press&Communication: daniela.madonna@iodeposito.org


The exhibition "Memory as a Living Matter / international Artists for a Reinterpretation of the War Object" in Trieste



Press release

Vernissage: Saturday the 4th of February, at 6.00 p.m., at the Umberto Veruda Gallery, Piazza Piccola 2, Trieste, Italy (access via Piazza Unità walking throughout the main portico)
Exhibition's details: from 4th of February until Sunday 5th March; from Monday to Saturday from 10.00 a.m. to 1.00 p.m. and from 5.00 p.m. to 7.30 p.m., with the possibility of free guided tours every Friday and Saturday from 5.00 p.m. to 7.00 p.m. (bookings available at info@iodeposito.org or via B#SIDE WAR App).

In collaboration with the Municipality of Trieste and the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region, IoDeposito Ngo is glad to present Memory As A Living Matter / International Artists for a a re-interpretation of the war object. The Vernissage will take place Saturday the 4th of February, at 6.00 p.m. at the Umberto Veruda Gallery (Trieste, Italy): for the occasion, a talk with the artists. The exhibition will be available for free until Sunday 5th March in the prestigious location, from Monday to Saturday from 10.00 a.m. to 1.00 p.m. and from 5.00 p.m. to 7.30 p.m., with the possibility of free guided tours every Friday and Saturday from 5.00 p.m. to 7.00 p.m. (bookings available at info@iodeposito.org or via B#SIDE WAR App). 
The event belongs to the third edition of the diffuse artistic and cultural Festival B#SIDE WAR, which is promoted by IoDeposito through numerous italian and international events such as exhibitions, conferences and research project (www.bsidewar.org).

The exhibition Memory As A Living Matter proposes new interpretations of the war object by 10 international contemporary artists, in an original concept of "artist's museography": only a few pieces, made out of poor materials, essential and almost naked in their exposure, but yet so powerful in their expression to unlock the universal meanings, awakening the collective memory and bringing us in contact with the experience of those who have lived the conflict. Between works composed of "strong" materials - iron, cement, everyday items, ready made and objets trouvé - and works composed instead of fragile materials, ineffable and powerfully organic, that bleed to death and fade away under the eyes of the visitor - paper, burned wood, ashes, graphite, egg shells, bread -, the meaning that artists attach to the event of war becomes perceptual, immediate, it brings us back to the sense of humanity, in the world of everyone's images, where the archetypal realities speak a universal language that awakens the legacies and the memories of all of us, echoing those latent legacies of the conflicts that are stratified in our DNA.

Boris Bejas, one of the exhibition's artist, argues «I am very interested in how the social crises interact with the structure of everyday life: through the use of the spectator, art belongs to all three time-lines -past, present and future». Playing a part in the reinterpretation of the war object into contemporary artworks made with war remains, and in artworks that materialise the unexpressed war heritages, the user is immersed in a multi-focal perception of history.

Contacts:
Press&Communication: daniela.madonna@iodeposito.org