A celebration of images, sounds and cinematic visions brings to a close the exhibition programme that brought the Castello Volante in Corigliano d’Otranto to life last summer.
On Friday 29 October, from 7.30 pm until midnight, the ancient manor house in the heart of Grecìa Salentina will host an evening dedicated to the works and artists of ‘Visioni del Sud’, the programme of artist residencies and exhibitions which, over the last three years, has transformed the Castello Volante into an observatory on regional transformations and a hub for the production of audiovisual works and the promotion of historical and recently established archives.
The project, conceived by Big Sur and funded by the Puglia Region – Culture, Protection and Development of Cultural Enterprises, Tourism, Development and Tourism Enterprises, Polo Arti Cultura Turismo, Piiil Cultura and Puglia 365, aims to encourage younger generations to engage actively with the region by fostering a critical perspective on cultural landscapes – both present and past.
The event (with free admission), organised in collaboration with Castello Volante and the Festa di Cinema del Reale, opens with a programme dedicated to films that depict the South, including ‘Makarìa’ by Giulia Attanasio, a tribute to the Salento-born singer, musician and researcher Vincenza Magnolo; ‘Musikì’ by Paolo Pisanelli, an auditory and visual journey through a region rich in transformations and oral and musical traditions; and ‘Vituccio – Terra e canti’ by Matteo Greco, a tribute to the great singer from Villa Castelli, Vito Nigro – known as Vitucc te Carcagn – who passed away just a few days ago and to whom the evening is dedicated. Among the screenings not to be missed is ‘Il mondo di Lisetta’, an interview by Paolo Pisanelli with Lisetta Carmi, one of the leading figures in social photography of the second half of the twentieth century.
At the same time, in the Nuvole space – the restaurant and cocktail bar at Castello Volante – the evening comes alive with a DJ set by Ludo Teka, an eclectic musical programme by Ludovico Esposito ranging from electronic music to jazz, from hip hop to world music. Following this, until late into the night, the party will draw to a close with the sounds of Max Nocco, selected from the musical archive of his beloved old and new vinyl records.
The ‘Festa di Visioni del Sud’ is the final opportunity to explore the entire exhibition, curated by Paolo Pisanelli and Francesco Maggiore with installations by Maurizio Buttazzo and Efrem Barrotta, starting with the photographic exhibition ‘Wolf Suschitzky & The Sardinian Project’, organised in collaboration with the Istituto Superiore Etnografico della Sardegna, featuring the extraordinary images by the Austro-English photographer and cinematographer who, in the 1950s, captured the cultural and human landscapes of Sardinia during the historic campaign against malaria.
Complementing Suschitzky’s photographs is a photographic installation drawn from the Giuseppe Palumbo Archive, in collaboration with the Castromediano Museum and the Lecce Library and Museum Complex, a precious iconographic heritage comprising 1,740 plates, produced between 1907 and 1959, depicting archaic Salento, its people, trades, places and their transformations.
The exhibition continues with ‘Erotico Erotico’, a previously unseen exhibition curated by Malì Erotico and Maurizio Buttazzo, which explores the artistic career of Antonio Carmelo Erotico, the ‘Frigidaire photographer’, the magazine that gave a voice to Italian underground culture in the 1980s and 1990s, and in particular his work relating to nudes and eroticism.
‘Visioni del Sud’ also features works by young artists exploring the themes of gender identity and non-conformity, such as ‘Marsico – Down the Street’, a photographic project by Andrea Ciccarese, who documented the daily life of the Marsico family, one of the oldest families of fairground entertainers in Salento, and ‘Gender Project’, a series of video interviews by Veronique Charlotte, a queer artist investigating themes of fluidity and gender – a project hosted at the Castello Volante thanks to Festival Persona and Cinema del reale.
‘Visioni del Sud’ also includes ‘Affacci’, by designer Vincenzo d’Alba, one of the founders of Kiasmo, who, following a residency at the Castello, reinterpreted the metaphorical and anthropological messages contained in the faces carved into the castle’s stones, offering a contemporary interpretation through a light installation created in collaboration with Sprech. Among the local partner companies that collaborated on the exhibition project are F.lli Parisi for the lighting installations and F.lli Colì for the ceramics.
The exhibitions continue in the basement of the Tower of St Anthony with ‘Katábasis’, a photographic project by Basilio Puglia, an evolving visual exploration, a symbolic journey through the sites of an unimaginable ecological catastrophe, whilst wildfires and Xylella represent genuine social and cultural emergencies in the Salento region. The theme of landscape returns in Sara Scanderebech’s photographic work, entitled ‘La Planéte Sauvage’, curated by Rosita Ronzini as part of a collaboration with Avant Festival; an intimate glimpse into the colours and bodies of the South, an invitation to explore a microcosm where plants and animals inhabit an unknown planet.
Photography and sculpture engage in dialogue in ‘Leggere attentamente il foglietto illustrativo’ (Read the package leaflet carefully), an exhibition featuring images and ceramics created by residents of the Casa per la Vita Artemide in Racale, guided by the artist and ceramist Giorgio di Palma. Alongside the audiovisual works, the exhibition features hands-on workshops and archives working on projects in progress, such as ‘L’erbario nel borgo’ by Elena Campa – a public print workshop dedicated to creating an ‘archive of plant forms’ – and Giancarlo Nunziato’s ‘Stamperia Nomade’, which aims to build a travelling archive of faces and portraits.
(Admission with Green Pass)
Info
+39 380 3110530
Table bookings
Nuvole, Cucina e Cocktail bar
+39 334 342 9268
For further information on Visioni del Sud
visionidelsud.it
VISIONI DEL SUD – CREDITS
A project by Big Sur; funded by the Puglia Region – Culture, Protection and Development of Cultural Enterprises, Tourism, Development and Tourism Enterprises, the Puglia Region Arts, Culture and Tourism Hub, Piiil Cultura in Puglia, Puglia 365; curated by Francesco Maggiore and Paolo Pisanelli; creative direction for exhibition design: Maurizio Buttazzo and Efrem Barrotta; graphic design and communications: Efrem Barrotta, Marco Spinelli; co-ordinated by Gianluca Rollo; press office: Giorgia Salicandro; technical installations: Rocco Morano and Cristiano Levantaci; hospitality: Federica Facioni; video editing: Matteo Gherardini and Elvira Molinario; web design: Enrico Rollo; printing: Arti Grafiche Panico, X Graph; administration: Sergio Quarta; social media: Marzia Cannoletta; with the support of Sprech, F.lli Colì, Schiavone Interiors; in collaboration with the Lecce Library and Museum Complex – Castromediano Museum, Castello Volante, CoolClub, Multiservice Eco, the Municipality of Corigliano d’Otranto, Archivio Cinema del reale, OfficinaVisioni, Istituto Superiore Etnografico della Sardegna, Domus artist residency, LOFT, Festival Persona, Avant Festival, Gender Project, Riforesta, Kiasmo, Casa per la Vita Artemide in Racale, UCREATE – Co-creating Europe through the arts, the Lisetta Carmi Archive, Kunstschau, RTI Theutra Oasimed and Arte Contemporanea Picena, Crio.Vision, DgTales.com