Project Ideas...

My dream right now....

UOVO Performing Arts Festival

This is an event I will attending this week as part of the UOVO Performing Arts Festival, 2011...

UOVO Performing Arts Festival...

Finished Sketchbook...

This is my first sketchbook filled and finished! A wonderful accomplishment and many more to come :)

A little Milan history~ La Quartiere di Porta Ticinese...

As well as running and taking part in the workshop, Celine wanted us to get involved in an exhibition that is being organized by Scotini, the head of Painting & Visual Arts at NABA. It is very related to her work looking at cultivating creative dialogues within the local community. The exhibition will be opening in the next month and revolves around the Milan district 'Porta Ticinese'. As a curator and art critic, Scotini is interested in revealing the roots of the area and its very important and active role within the art histories. This is exhibition is linked and import to NABA as an institution, as the school is situated in the Porta Ticinese neighbourhood and moved their from the north of Milan 7 years ago. 

                                                            *                  *                   *

Porta Ticinese has always been a very important neighbourhood, it is home of the Navigli canals and has an extremely rich and vibrant history, rooting a lot of very important artistic and political movements as well as historical achievements in Milan. In collaboration with Celine's workshop and looking for 'Support Structures' in the local community, Scotini organised a talk with a long term resident from the area to come and speak to us of her memories...This was also a great way for us to find out geographical 'clues' as to where these interesting artstic spaces had once existed and where they could be found. She was a very interesting woman and revealed the roots and story of 'La Quartiere di Porta Ticinese'...

Old map of Porta Ticinese

Porta Ticinese has always been conceived as the 'inner village' of Milan. It is an extremely diverse  neighbourhood and the only one of it's kind in Milan. It is a very important area because it houses the Navigli canal systems, which have been a major part in the growth and expansion of Milan as well as being a diverse historical artefact of the city.
The canal system was designed by Leonardo Da Vinci, himself, in 1482. Leonardo Da Vinci at that time was a newly arrived Milan citizen and was commissioned to design the canal system by Ludovico il Moro. The Navigli was the largest river harbour in Europe, bringing in exports from all over the world, and used to be known as the "Cheesy Area" because of the strong smell of cheese that lingered in the streets. The Navigli is also very important because it was the passage way through Milano where all the materials for the Duomo Cathedral where sent by, this being one of the biggest architectural projects in Milan, taking over 300 years to complete.

An old photo of El Duomo

In the early 1900's Porta Ticinese turned into a commercial neigbourhood, where lots of factories and craft based centres were built within the area. In World War II, because of this economic expansion it was targeted and bombed badly, destroying a lot of the factories and establishments. After the war, Porta Ticinese was re-build and there was a very strong female presence, with 'woman only' factories existing and a re-birth of the commercial industry. Porta Ticinese was a very poor neigbourhood, with houses maintaining a whole family in one room, and the living conditions were extremely basic. It was always was an affordable place where families would live in the city, creating a strong community feel. 

The key behind Porta Tiscinese's ongoing existence as the internal village of Milan has been its architectual landscape. Because it is build around the canals of the Navigli, this stopped the opportunity of large urban expansion. When all the commercial establishments eventually moved out of Porta Ticinese and into the city centre, the factories where left and abandoned. This left a perfect space for artists and squatters to move in and to bring a new life and presence into the area. In the 1960's there was a great invasion of young people that came and occupied all of the old factories and buildings, using them for artistic studios, living spaces and other self-run schools and organizations. 

Because the area was very affordable, and in a way unwanted, the intellectuals of the time, and artistic networks came with the whole avande garde movement and there began their own mini revolution.  In the 1960/70's Porta di Ticinese housed a specific mode of living, it was a place for autonomous living and a way to be part of a community. For both political and artistic radicals and intellectuals, it was a quartiere for activity and exchange of knowledge. It was in this time period, that Porta Ticinese founded an extremely important site; the first political book shop in Italy, and it was set up by the very important political body; Primi Moroni. 

Primo Moroni

Primo Moroni was a writer and poet situated and living in Porta Ticinese in this time period. Not only did he open the first political bookshop in Italy, he also founded an extremely fundamental site and tool for the Milanese people. The book shop was named 'Cox 18' and is still present on la Via Conchetta, which is directly down the road from NABA. 

Moroni opened this venture as a way to collect and share the poltical material that was being created and published in the 70's from all over the world. He was a very important political charcter in Milan, and his bookshop attracted people globally to come and look at his vast collection, as Moroni had found access to poltiical writings and publications that could not be found anywhere else in the world. He fed this material to the local community and through this dialogue cultivated an extremely rich and radical culture within Porta Ticinese. 

Cox 18, Via Conchetta 

All the political material, manifestos, zines and publications are still archived and can be found at the 'Cox 18'. His collection is still very much of historical importance and his legacy lives on, sharing the knowledge and which are tell the story of a very important time period within the political histiry of the world. 

Another famous writer and poet of this time was Alda Merini. She has been suggested as the greatest contemporary poet to live in Italy. She was the protagonist of the cultural scene in Italy, living in Milan her whole life. She lived in poverty, through her own choice and suffered from mental illness, a thing she called the "shadows of the mind". Merini was an extremely influential character to Italian Poetry, and to Porta Ticinese as that was the quarter she lived and created in. 

The mural for Mereni

Alda Merini passed way at the end of 2009 and her funeral was funded by the state, which to me just shows how much respect she had from the Italian people. A memorial mural was made shortly after her death in the Porta Ticinese area near her home. 

Porta Ticinese at present

Porta Ticinese has now developed into an extremely busy city nightlife centre, and the essence of the 'internal village' has very much disappeared. After the fascist presence in Italy, in the early 90's the squats and autonomous way of living was irradicated, making this cultural collective flee to different cities, and only a few residents fighted against the government and some eventually got the rights for their illegally habited homes, where they now live. 

What is left of this extremely interesting history are the little clues; the murals, a lot of graffiti and street presence, the Cox 18 building and the people that stayed in the area. When you walk down the streets of Porta Ticinese there is defiantely a hidden mystery to them. You can feel the artistic roots and that it was once an active place, there is a very interesting essence in the air...

Now the area is occupied by nightclubs, bars, vintage shops, markets and lots and lots of students, but within a very different age and approach. Rent prices have rocketed, the presence of politics has dissapeared, and yet it is still a very sociable space...

I am very much looking forward to seeing how Scotini tries to form these two ages together through the exhibition, and to re-connect the space with its past. I feel it is important that these support structures are kept alive and open for the community, that the areas roots are not forgotten, and that it can always be a cultural centre for the young generations to come...

Group ESC- Wanderings...

~Celine Condorelli Workshop: Day 2.
Celine was very interested for us to go out and find the exsisiting 'Support Structures' in Milan. Being someone new to Milan, I was also very interested and enthusiastic about finding these spaces, just as a reference point for whilst I'm here. In Dundee I am very much involved and part of the artistic community, so for me it is always important to find out/know where they are as centres of possibilties...

Celine put us all into small groups, and then asked us to go searching for both 'physical' and 'invisible' sites of support and interesting places to dispay work, with our surrounding environment being the blank canvas of these discoveries.

This is what we found on our wanders... (Me, Edna & Carlo = ESC)

 

Bridge= Physical support structure....

An empty/open space, in between two buildings...

The local laudrette- Active for the last 24 years, a definate support structure for the community!

The support structure for a tree...

Modes of Display: Publications= physical structures...

Even your umbrella is a support structure...

The local city bikes...

Even the man selling the umbrella' and goods, represents a 'support structure'...

 The local Market...

 Wooden Crates= Support Structures

This is a very important structure, it contains a historic archive of all the political publications and manifesto's from the 1960's/70's.

What this expidition made me realise more than anything was that pretty much everything around us is a 'support structure'. The streets we walk on, the bridges that connect space to space, our supermarkets, the local transport, our hairdressers, mobile ojects like tents and umbrellas, even our physical bones are support structues. It was a very interetsing way to approach and see the world, because essentially everything is a possible mode of 'support'. It just revealed to me how we as people create these ways of living, the social anthrolpogy behind human activity and the places we inhabit...

'Support Structures'~ Workshop!

Celine Condorelli~ 'Support Structures' 

Celine Condorelli is an Italian/French architect who lives and works in London. She came this week to do a conference on her book 'Support Structures' as part of the NABA evening lectures programme.
'Support Structures' is a book based on the community project 'Eastside Projects', which is a creative platform that Celine created in Birmingham and has worked on for the past 8 years, since 2003. The book is a manual and reference to this project, revealing the story of it's creation and the process of how it was innitiated to the transformation to the important 'social body' it has become at present.

I found the lecture very interesting and inspiring because she discussed the importance of physical artistic spaces as a means to to create an 'architectual dialogue' with the local community. 'Eastside Projects' is an artist -run organisation and is an open platform for the community; it is a dynamic space that substains both art & culture, creating a structure and support interface for Birmingham. I love the idea of having a ground to work with, a physical base, a place where you can invite people to interact within, a space that is active within the community and that teaches and opens many possibilties...So the space is not only a building, but a political body, a collaboration of creative minds, a sense of collectivity...Public presence; art that functions and is active within socitety.

This is very much what I would like to do as an artist in the future, to create a space and very much perminant structure for open exploration. This would create a meeting point and space where you could innovate art and exchange knowledge. The wonderful thing about having a physical space is that as an artist organisation and collective, you can be rooted and part of the surrounding environment and most of all you can involve them in your work...It is an open door for everyone to come and dialogue with...

Eastside Projects, Birmingham.

After the lecture I approached Celine to ask her a few questions...I was curious as to why she had left Italy and decided to work in England, and also if she was interested in creating a similar platform in Milan. It was in this discussion that I found out that she was taking a workshop with the master class this week. so I asked if I could join it. And she said yes! So the next day I got to join her masters class, become integrated in this wonderful learning bubble and to work with her on her quest to find examples of 'Support Structures' in Milano...

Finalised NABA Subjects!

After a bit of chopping and changing, I now have my finalised list for all the NABA subjects I will be taking this semester:

-Progettazione per la pittura II  (Design for Painting II)

-Analisi e progettazione dello spazio sonoro  (Analysis and design of space-sound)

-Videoarte  (Video Art)

-Cultura Visuale  (Visual Culture)

-Storia dell’arte Contemporanea II  (Contemporary-Art History II)

-Progettazione Interventi Urbani e Territoriali  (Urban Interventions & Public Art)

-Fotografia  (Photography)

-Scultura  (Sculpture)

Sunday reflections...

Today is exactly a month since I made my journey into the Erasmus world of Milan. This is a very strange feeling because it feels like a lifetime ago, and yet like it could of been yesterday. This whole process has really revealed to me just how much a person can transition in such a short space of time, and jus how much one can change just through being within a different environment. 


The wonderful thing about this whole experience is that as soon as I arrived, I immediately felt at home, so the transition period of adapting from one place to the other took literally seconds. Maybe this is why time has completely disappeared here, because I very much feel like I am in a different world…Yet time is something that is really at essence because there is only so many months I am going to be here, so in that sense I am very aware of this invisible deadline. I am beginning to realise just how quick this experience will go and how important it is that when July comes, I can feel as though I have explored every direction and made the most of this whole experience.


I really want to push myself, yet it is hard to do so with no studio space, workshops or really knowing what materials & facilities I have access to. I guess the reality of it is that I am still learning and integrating myself within this new education system. I would love whilst I'm here to find a way of getting involved with a local gallery space, or to find some sort of collective, because these are very much important aspects of my experience as an artist, and having that very rich surrounding with working alongside people.

Tomorrow I have a meeting with Domenico, who is the course co-coordinator at NABA and I hope to discuss the general ins and outs of student life and the ways of art school here. I just want to get a better understanding of what my possibilities are, so that I can begin to visualize how I am going to work and begin making things. Afterwards I am also hoping to find the painting tutor Marcelo, who is the only person I know at NABA who meddles with Performance Art, which is exciting because maybe through him I can find out about student performance groups and other ways of exploring the practice in Milan.

  So far I have found Italy a very interesting country; it is a place with an extremely rich taste and projects a very high output and wealth of knowledge within the art world. The Italians are also I feel very open and have wonderfully political mind frames. All the lectures I have been to have discussed some really interesting artists/artworks and I love that the Italians are so involved and passionate as people. Although it is funny, because the Italians definitely inhabit a wave of negativity and bitterness, where they don’t seem to be happy in the situation that they are in... I found this very interesting article in the MiArt Magazine that discusses current Italian culture, and it talked about Italy being in a process of questioning itself as a country that has still not resolved its relationship with modernity.

“Italy is unquestionably experiencing a period of revived interest on various fronts. Actually, this interest comes more from the outside than the inside, in the sense that non-Italians tend to believe in Italy more than Italians do, and this goes for art as well. In short, out of fear of seeming provincial, we Italians find ourselves in a position where we rely on other people for validation about what we are, not realizing that we should be the first to recognize and affirm our values, our identity and talents.”

I feel this statement is very human, and I like how Italy is in this process of questioning itself, because it kind of reflects where I have felt for the most of my artistic degree.  I think it is a very healthy thing to do to question and reflect on yourself, and the answers always eventually reveal themselves to you if you look…I can also very much empathise that it is easier to see and realise something as an outsider, because sometimes we are far too inward and involved with our own inner battles to see the outer realities of our real situation.


I spent the whole of my second year questioning why I was at art school and if I was in the right place, and then followed onto a very hellish beginning of 3^rd year, where I was consumed by the humongous amount of work I gave myself. It is through being here, and being out of that environment that I have been able to reflect on all these processes and now understand they were a vital part of my artistic journey and process. I feel now it is time to stop questioning, and to just believe in the essence of the unknown, now that I feel I have that foundation of self belief and set of artistic values. I can now have very much have a clearer understanding of where I want to go and what I want to say as an artist, what I want to project into the world…


This whole Erasmus journey, for me, is really about finding the balance between both working and socializing, planning and doing and becoming a part of the Milan artistic culture as well as really giving myself the time to explore and develop all my ideas, and to hopefully create some innovating pieces of work. I want the work that I make to really reflect this change of environment and also for my own presence to affect the people around me. It is about this exchange of knowledge and reflection that I want to bring back with me; who we are, how we function, how we behave, our inner and outer selves, all in relation to the space we inhabit…

This experience is as much about learning about myself as it is learning about living in a new city… It is something that will definitely help me find my voice, and make me realize what matters and what doesn’t. I think it is going to be a great journey of self-discovery and something that will definitely manifest itself into my future roots as an artist, all I hope is that time lets me create everything I want to and that I truly grasp it to make the most of this wonderful experience…

My first experience of Performance Art in Milano.

Friday 4th March, '2011

A massive crowd of people wait outside an art gallery in the back streets of Milano. We are anticipating the Performance duo DIEGO PERRONE & Christian Frosi. 

As we wait, lots of strange noises can be heard from inside the space, sounds of bashing and clashing...It echoes silently...The public wait for the doors to open, casually socializing and discussing the predictions of the performance. In the crowds I bump into some people from my school, they all leave briefly for a beer, but come back eventually. We are all still waiting.... After standing outside the venue for almost an hour, the public begin to stir and start chanting 'OUT! OUT! OUT!’.... There is no reply, but shapes of movements can be seen behind the see through plastic doors and then also camera flashes. It now becomes very evident that there is action happening within the venue and we as the audience are being diverted from it. The public at the front begin to bash on the doors very angrily. There is a little peephole in the door and they keep on shouting ‘LET US IN! LET US IN! The door does not open and again we wait and wait with no answer…

Then the door suddenly opens; a child stands at the door covered in dirt. The crowd goes completely silent, and people exclaim: “UN BAMIBINO!” ….

We slowly enter and follow the child into the space and into the darkness. As we walk in  we are faced with a big pile of broken coal… It crunched underneath my feet and makes very uneasy sounds.

Once we had all gathered in the venue we wandered about, investigating all the broken objects dotted about and trying to understand them in relation to the space…Still no sign of the performance artists, but there was a camera set up recording and speakers…I am wandering in my head; what exactly is happening- when will the performance begin?... Why are we in darkness? Then out of the crowd, the two performance artists finally appear with the young child standing between them…They enter the middle of the space and begin to applaud him. Then everyone joins in and applauds him. Then the lights come on and the performance finishes…

THE END…?

Sculpture Exhibitions...

As part of my Sculpture 'homework' this week I had to visit some exhibitions around Milano~
Here are my observations/thoughts...

1. Centre Cultural Francais de Milan~ Aurelien Froment

This exhibition was held at the French Institute in Milano. As you entered the space you were faced with two projection spaces, that looked like inward boxes and a large hanging sculpture piece. In these box-like spaces there where two different projections, one with a floating jellyfish and the other with a strange paper machine.

The first piece, as you walked into the gallery was a video projecting a floating jellyfish. It was a perfect object; natural, floating like a ball of  smoke. It's presence completely took over the space, it was absoloutely electrical; a wonderful creature. But there was a strange voice over with this piece that I couldn't understand as it was in french so I didn't quite distinguish it's link to the piece...

Then at the back of the galley space was another box space, showing a video piece called 'The Fourdrinier Machine Interluede'...It was a very bizzare piece, the film was dragged accross the screen extremely slowely, appearing as though the machine was coming out of nothing, and to accompany it was a strange sound piece, that echoed the same rythmn of slowness. It felt like a massive projected process of the artwork...

Hanging sculpture pieces...

2. Peephole~ Pavel Buchler & Eva Spiliopoulou

The Peephole gallery was a very interesting venue because it was situated within a courtyard of flats. It meant that once I finally found it I had to buzz the gallery to be let in. I have found on my wanders that a lot of these artists run, non-profit spaces are situated in these very strange courtyards, and are  converted flats. Iam very interested in the roots behind these spaces and that the gallery has taken over a private space and turned it into a public one, it definitely gives a very different feel to the exhibition...

I really liked this exhibition as a sculptural piece of work. It had a very engaging physical presence and a very interesting visual play with the projected spheres. The projectors themselves had a great sculptural stance within the space, almost as standing people. When I looked up close to see how they had built the projection it was very interesting to see the relationship between the balls that were visible and the ones that were hidden within the projectors....

It definitely had a very playful and spontaneous approach, yet it is was obviously a process that had taken a lot of time and experimentation to work out the precision of where the circles meet, and how they relate to one another as shapes...

A really interesting exhibition with a great realtionship between the space and the objects within it...Like floating moon projections...

"NOTES FROM THE BOTTOM OF A BAG"- Pavel Buchler

TV's & Projections...

3. Zero~ Part of the Process  # 4

 The Inward Bench. 

This space was probabely my favourite gallery. It had a very intersting set out and good diversity of mediums. In the main exhibition space there were lots of different objects, all placed in relation to one another, and I thought it was very interesting from a curatorial view point. 

Zero is especially interesting because it is run by a collective, and therrefore doesn't embody just one presence. I feel this really enrichens the space because there are so many more creative minds behind it, and also because they work as a team. It was very evident just through the diversity of pieces and approach to the space...

"Mikhail Baryshnikov is the best dancer in the world...."

This was such a wonderful piece...As you wandered around the main exhibition space, you could hear the sound of this video piece coming through from this little darkened room...When I entered the I got a really strange feeling, like I had just walked into a socially awkward situation/world...

If I had to describe it as I saw it, it would just appear as a man repeating lots of different phrases, yet throughout his performance, the man keeps on looking at the director, behind the camera for his next acting directions, like he isn't sure about his performance, or what he's meant to be doing...its gives the whole piece a very interesting voyeuristic feel, it almost feels its like a rehearsal, rather than a final piece...

And there is also the odd world of video, when something is presented on screen it suddenly has a presence of importance, it takes an immediate stance...But the weird thing is that the man is so unsure of what he saying, so it completely breaks that notion-it presents the strange boundaries of acting & reality...very weird yet so watchable. There is such a wonderful natural rhythm of the words, there is something so human about his presence on screen...

I really liked this space. It is definitely somewhere I will re-visit  in the future and look forward to seeing what other art works they exhibit and how they use the space... 

Cariandoli!

Today I went around the streets of Milan documenting all the different trails of cariandoli that I found on my wanders...It is amazing how vastly the colourful pieces of paper are spread right through out the city...You can find it anywhere; on the highstreets, the little back alleyways, in the parks, in fountains, and even in the courtyards of el Castello! It is truley amazing stuff...and very much it's own form of public intervention.