On the occasion of OpenHouse 2019 we invited Bianca Felicori, journalist, communication expert and, among others, creator of the Forgotten Architecture project, to a micro-residence.

The residence becomes an opportunity for Bianca to guide us to the discovery of a great shared archive of Forgotten Architecture together with other guests.

In fact, on the occasion of the residence there will be an informal meeting to enlarge the map and deepen the already mapped places.

Forgotten Architecture has no pre-established rules, but above all it is a project of pure and genuine sharing. The group starts from a first interpretation of the term: Forgotten should not be misunderstood as abandoned or poorly maintained, but has various nuances. Forgotten is the architecture of a great forgotten master, is the work of a minor architect never considered, is the small church of the archistar never studied at university and so on.

Working between documentary and the imaginary, Škarnulytė makes films and immersive installations exploring deep time and invisible structures, from the cosmic and geologic to the ecological and political. Her blind grandmother gently touches the weathered statue of a Soviet dictator. Neutrino detectors and particular colliders measure the cosmos with otherworldly architecture. Post-human species swim through submarine tunnels above the Arctic Circle and crawl through tectonic fault lines in the Middle Eastern desert.

Winner of the 2019 Future Generation Art Prize, Škarnulytė represented Lithuania at the XXII Triennale di Milano and was included in the Baltic Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Biennale of Architecture. With solo exhibitions at CAC, Vilnius in 2015 and Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin in 2017, she has participated in group shows at Ballroom Marfa, Seoul Museum of Art, Kadist Foundation, and the First Riga Biennial. Her numerous prizes include the Kino der Kunst Project Award, Munich (2017); Spare Bank Foundation DNB Artist Award (2017), and the National Lithuanian Art Prize for Young Artists (2016). She received an undergraduate degree from the Brera Academy of Art in Milan and holds a masters from the Tromsø Academy of Contemporary Art.

Her films have been screened at the Serpentine Gallery, UK, the Centre Pompidou, France and in numerous film festivals including in Rotterdam, Busan, and Oberhausen. She is a founder and currently co-directs Polar Film Lab, a collective for analogue film practice located in Tromsø, Norway and is a member of artist duo New Mineral Collective, recently commissioned for new work by the First Toronto Biennial.

During the residency,

During the residency, Emilija will explore the underwater and underground Naples for the production of her latest project and will present her works through studio visits and a round table.

the first artist residency of the year 2021 in the spaces of SuperOtium which will take place from 15 to 28 February 2021.

A year after the first lockdown taken in Italy due to the coronavirus emergency, photographer Giovanna Silva returns to Naples, the fourth stop after Milan, Genoa and Rome, for a residency to rediscover a city proud of its architectural and urbanistic charm, and at the same time protagonist of a change that is marking the way of life and crossing all those metropolises with the highest population density in Italy.

“Since I can no longer travel abroad, I am considering a book that combines my architectural walks through the cities of Italy.
My interest is architectural, but also exploratory and performative; I take photos with my i-phone, not for lack of a camera, but precisely because the i-phone allows you to be more discreet and immediate.
I take photographs following the paths and advice of the people I interview, creating and following a ‘map’ of stories that allow me to get to know the city better.”

The “stories to be told about the city of Naples”, due to the ambivalent way in which it is often perceived and enjoyed by those who visit and live there, is one of the themes that has fascinated Lorenzo Xiques in recent years, a young curator and queer activist in the Naples area, whose latest exhibition “Vendi Napoli e poi Muori” inspired by the novel of the same name by Gennaro Ascione” held at Galleria Fonti.

“The way of crossing and living the city, in particular that of Naples, is very different depending on whether you are a queer person or a member of the cisgender society.
Queer communities, or in general those oppressed by the patriarchal system, have always had to identify and create “SAFE” places and paths where they can freely live their identities. These are places and stories that are often not beaten (neither on the road nor on the typewriter) by the people who arrive on the territory, as they are hidden places by their nature or because they are deliberately censored.”

The meeting between Giovanna Silva and Lorenzo Xiques will become the occasion for a research laboratory that will send the two actors on an advance scouting trip through the city of Naples, in search of places and stories – in a period marked by the restrictions due to the “yellow zone” imposed by the DPCM – and of new suggestions and revelations useful for the restitution of a “map” in images of the post-pandemic city.

The year 2020-21, the year of the pandemic, will be remembered above all for its images, and their ability to tell the stories – or the silences – that marked it.

The completed project will be presented on 27 February at 4 pm at the end of the artist’s residency.

During the residency it will be possible to meet Giovanna Silva by booking a studio visit.

The residence is developed with the collaboration of SuperOtium, which, as a residence space, will host the artists, will be a study / laboratory of their work and will contribute to the construction of the Neapolitan edition program.

The Neapolitan stage of the project is inspired by the Grand Tour, intended as a practice of training and artistic production in the footsteps of the tradition of travel made by intellectuals and artists between 700 and 800.
The themes related to the exploration of unknown places thus become an opportunity for meeting and migrating acquires a positive connotation, becoming synonymous with exchange, that intertwining with the different that leads to an enrichment and expansion of knowledge. The intent is to narrate Italy through the gaze of some selected artists and artists who, through their work which consists in the creation of a real travel diary, express the impressions received by a specific geographical area with its people, its culture and its historical – artistic heritage.

The protagonists of this residence, all female, are: Simona Da Pozzo, Serena Fineschi, Stefania Mazzola.
The artists will take advantage of the residence and meeting with the realities of the Neapolitan city to create new works, in the form of an in-progress project with drawings, images, sculptures and artist notebooks.

The visiting artists will be joined by the visiting artists: Maura Banfo, Sophie Ko, Valeria Manzi, Concetta Modica, in addition to the contribution of Giuseppina Giordano in correspondence with Japan.

The residence, which will begin on March 8 and will engage the artists in a series of workshops and meetings that will end on March 14 with a special white night.

The traces of the work produced during the residency will find space, thanks to the collaboration with MetroArt / ANM of Naples, in four advertising spaces in as many subway stops in dialogue with the design of the art stations. A preview of what will then be the final exhibition.