Verdi Acque: cultural project, a social and landscaping trip. 23 to 28 August. From the Po river to the Venice lagoon, arriving at the opening of the Venice Architecture Biennale.
THE PROJECT
Verdi Acque is the result of a reflection by Ettore Favini and Elisbetta Bianchessi within the Masters in “Extraordinary Landscapes” in Landscape Design, organized by Politecnico di Milano Indaco and NABA – Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti Milano, in collaboration with the Cultural District of the Province of Cremona, Consorzio Navigare l’Adda and Associazione Canottieri di Cremona.
The objective of the proposal is to define a strategy aimed at creating a network of competences, knowledge, resources, and energy amongst the stakeholders that share a common mission: study, enhance, and promote the landscape and river system of the Cremona area and the Po plain up to the Venetian lagoon through the use of different shapes and languages, accepting and acknowledging the potential and unusual proposals of contemporary culture amongst them.
Verdi Acque involves different professionals, professors, artists, researchers, theoreticians and college students in a complex educational opportunity aimed at enhancing the navigation of the Po river and of the lagoon: the project will focus on a reinterpretation of the mean of transportation as well as of the travel experience through the river landscape, touching different places and especially the Cremona-Venice stretch during the first phase of the project, to take place in August 2012.
STAKEHOLDERS
The One-year Master Program “Extraordinary Landscapes” in Landscape Design offered by Politecnico di Milano – NABA Milano is directed by Elisabetta Bianchessi with Marco Scotini. The program focuses on the exploration and physical walk-through as a form of privileged knowledge of the landscape through multidisciplinary expression modalities, using contemporary techniques to represent and visualize the territories that comprise the core of the proposed cultural project.
In collaboration with Ettore Favini: part of his artistic work are his process (sharing, dialogue, design of the implementation and of the journey) and participation (make the work publicly available): the spectator participate in the actual artistic process. In this respect, the project is perfectly aligned with his poetic and working method.
Furthermore, the students of the Department of Visual, Performing and Multimedia Arts at NABA Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti Milano will be the protagonists of the photography and shooting activities to take place during the Verdi Acque project. While being on the boat and participating in public meetings with the citizens and in the conferences they will be recording images of the journey, observing each moment, territory, physical and social facts and interactions of and in the places; finally, they will realize a critical reportage. The images will be printed and distributed at conferences and exhibitions organized by the project partners.
The Province of Cremona is leading the project Distretto culturale della provincia di Cremona (Cultural District of the Province of Cremona), promoted within the cultural Districts founded by Fondazione Cariplo. Fondazione Cariplo believes it to be crucial to enhance and promote cultural resources that help to define territories in relation to innovation and creativity. In fact, the Verdi Acque project declines the river landscape through new research languages and experimentation of original expression modalities, capable to intercept new recipients and new publics and to widen the opportunities for the District to act on unusual places, outside the territory of the province itself.
Amongst the objectives defined in the statute of the Consorzio Navigare l’Adda is that to promote all initiatives aimed at the development of the navigation of the river as a tool for territorial promotion and enhancement through the use of its employees, means and organizational proposal. It is thus a crucial partner that can share know-how, competence and tools for the project implementation.
The Associazione delle Canottieri wants to safeguard and promote the development of sport and recreational activities on the river or lakes within the Po basin. A specific task of the Association is to represent its members at public institutions and bureaux for specific initiatives and programs dedicated to river and water environments, which are either relevant or interesting for the society. Thus, in this respect, the contribution of the Associazione Canottieri is important for the project implementation because of the competence and knowledge related to the Po river and its surroundings.
ACTIONS
VERDI ACQUE
From the Po river to the Venice lagoon
August 23rd – 28th 2012
This project is the outcome of a research carried aboard a vessel, which will set sail from Cremona to reach Venice. The research aims at unveiling the complexity of the Po river, capable of becoming the tool of a social/poetic/environmental reflection of the territories it is comprised of, according to the literary and cinema tradition that describes the “Great River” as the star of the story that tells about the Italian rivers – a landscape that, beyond its shores, is completely evolving just as the cultural dynamics related to the landscape and the artistic,humanistic, and scientific tools used to communicate it. It is a vessel/eye, which watches and records the landscape and, at the same time, stops on the shores to tell about it to its inhabitants, exchanging opinions and stories. During the stops, the boat becomes a “floating theater”, a sort of a narrative recorder/amplifier of the river and its landscape, and as a moving alteration of its peculiar flat line.
Filmography of the journey
The River (1937), P. Lorentz
Gente del Po (1947), M. Antonioni
Lungo il fiume (1992), E. Olmi
La Fiuma (2008), R. Schillaci, G.Barozzi
Un metro sotto i pesci (2008), M. Mellara, A.Barozzi Rumore Bianco (2008), A. Fasulo
Drowned Out (2002) F. Armstrong
We Can’t Wish Them Away (2002) F. Armstrong Another Venice (2003) M. Gaba
Coconut Revolution (2001) D. Rotheroe
Venice Architecture Biennale
August 26-27-28
The final destination of this slow, narrative navigation which will set sail from Cremona will be the Architecture Biennale in Venice, where the vessel will become a work of art, a silent witness of the journey, a mobile place that, while ploughing through the Venice lagoon, will host a series of conferences/events focusing on the topics of environment and sustainability and landscape. The vessel will become a gym/platform for thoughts and vision, to tell the journey and make it public and open to all spectators of the Architecture Biennale, in peculiar spots of the lagoon.
The guests of the vessel and of the lagoon will animate the opening days of the Venice Architecture Biennale through a series of encounters and conferences on the topics of ecology, sustainability, and environments. These events, organized in collaboration with Microclima and Università IUAV, will take place at Sant’Erasmo island, Mose bocca at porto Lido, Barene golenali, Serra dei Giardini at the Venice Biennale, Padiglione Italia at the Venice Biennale.
Invited guests:
Marc Augé Ethnologist and Anthropologist
Yvette Masson Zanussi EFAP-FEPA Director
Alberto Fasulo Director
Luca Molinari Historian and Architecture Critic
RozO Architects
Tags: conference, trip, workshops
