13/11/2018 @ 20 h
On the occasion of the sixteenth edition of the LOOP festival in Barcelona (12th – 22th November 2018) Espronceda Center for Arts and Culture presents “The Voice of Places” project curated by Valentina Casacchia related to places as architecture of emotions. The latest research of the artist and photographer Savina Tarsitano in collaboration with the composer Maya Barsacq is accompanied by two film screenings produced by Davide Gambino: Maredolce-La Favara. The International Carlo Scarpa Prize for Gardens 2015, realized with and for Benetton Foundation and Pietra Pesante, winner of Best Documentary of New York Film Academy in 2013.
Following the theme of LOOP, which this year focuses on “production” here intended as the relationship between the producer and the product, the works of the three artists build a narrative on identity. By embodying different perspectives and variations, the meeting point of the artists’ research is the familiar glance they look through and to the past.
Thanks to her personal growth full of public and private experiences, the artistic research of Savina Tarsitano focused on the concept of “land”, winding through stays in themed places such as islands, abbeys and castles. The works, which have different languages, have taken the shape of visions embodied in a relationship with the environment that, beyond its manifest characteristics, is configured as a visual territory. The recent meeting with the composer Maya Barsacq, founder and director of Cadenza, gave birth to “Volto di Calabria” a story about Calabria, flowing through the mountains of Aspromonte, Pollino, through ancient Greece and the Byzantine beauty. The short movie is dramatically cut by a strong editing that here is meant to restore the hard wounds that the real landscape of Calabria suffered.
Davide Gambino, a young and multi-award-winning Sicilian director based in Brussels, presents Maredolce-La Favara. The International Carlo Scarpa Prize for Gardens 2015, realized with and for the Foundation as part of the campaign Carlo Scarpa Prize XXVI, which lives through the testimonies of authoritative and passionate characters who illuminate a possible future of the site, poised between past and present, between agriculture and tourism, between landscape and art; and Pietra Pesante, winner of Best Documentary of New York Film Academy in 2013, where “In an archaic Sicily suspended between sheeps and sculpture, between dream and reality, a man leads a solitary life working between nature and art … ” focused on the figure of the sculptor Lorenzo Reina.
Valentina Casacchia
About the Artists:
Davide Gambino (Busto Arsizio, 1985) is an Italian director who graduated at Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. His research field moves between fiction and new forms of documentaries. He is the author and director of films produced both at national and international level. He has produced a biographical film about Alberto Burri, titled Alberto Burri – La vita nell’arte and Still Life, realized in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment and the Foundation Cinema for Rome, which has been selected in several international productions. His future debut Pietra Pesante has won prestigious awards, including the award for the best Italian documentary 2013 offered by the Italian Institute of Culture in New York. He wrote and directed “Il bar del Cassarà”, a series co-produced by Rai Fiction and Alveare Cinema. He has written several publications for specialized magazines including collaborations with international directors and production companies. www.davidegambino.net
Savina Tarsitano (Calabria, 1970) currently lives and works between Brussels and Barcelona. Photographer and painter, from 2006 till date she has been carrying out her artistic research dedicating herself to the artistic project ‘L’Isola che vuoi’, from which the projects ‘Emotional Architecture’ and ‘Chaos Icons’ are born, thanks to the Odissea program promoted and managed by the Association des Centers Culturels de Rencontre de Paris (ACCR) with the support of the French Ministry of Culture and Communication, the Upernavik Museum in Greenland, the Bogliasco Foundation in Italy and the European project ‘Et in Arcadia Ego’. She was selected by the European Chinese center of Xiamen, China, the Artistic League of New York and Brazil. Her artworks have been exhibited in Europe, Asia and the USA. She has exhibited at the Biennale of Venice -Padiglione Calabria and the Biennial of Havana, Cuba. She was nominated member of the European Parliament of Culture for his artistic research and she obtained the appointment of Ambassador of the Third Paradise by Michelangelo Pistoletto and Cittadellarte for her activism in art at the center of social change . She was selected for the European Year of Cultural Heritage with her heritage project made in collaboration with Espronceda Center. www.savinatarsitano.com
Maya Barsacq is a French/American conductor, composer and former Opera Singer. She is the founder and conductor of Cadenza Orchestra. A dedicated advocate of classical music and especially contemporary classical music, Barsacq has striven to champion new compositions since the inception of the orchestra (2005), as she loves working with living composers. She is also the co-founder and artistic director/conductor of a new multimedia ensemble NuAroma. Barsacq started composing in 2003 while studying conducting. She has been inspired by composers such as Pamela Z, Chessa, Vasks, Gubaidolina, Mollicone, Pärt, Fontana and Puts. She also bases many of her compositions from her extensive travels and work with eminent musicians from around the globe. In 2018, Barsacq was the recipient of the Emily Harvey Foundation composition residency in Venice. She is thrilled to have collaborated with visual artist Savina Tarsitano for this new work that will premiere at the LOOP Barcelona festival in the fall of 2018. Additionally, American artist Susan Harvey has commissioned Barsacq a piece for their joint presentation of Frogs that will premiere in the summer of 2019 in Barcelona. She is the proud recipient of the 2005 Gail Rich Award for her dedication to the arts. www.mayabarsacq.com
