In one of the most representative places of contemporary Milanese creativity, 300 creatives under 35, coming from all over the Mediterranean area, will meet to present their works, created respecting the theme of this edition of the Mediterranean Biennial: No Food's Land.
The protagonists of this event arrive at the Fabbrica del Vapore after passing the selection of a commission from each member country of the Bjcem network, which includes civil society organizations, local and national authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Cyprus, Egypt, France, Greece, Italy, Lebanon, Malta, Montenegro, Palestine, Portugal, Republic of San Marino, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey and Austria, Kosovo and Israel as external members.
The projects embrace a varied multitude of forms of expression, such as the visual and applied arts (Architecture, Industrial Design, Web Design, Fashion, Digital Creation), storytelling, entertainment (Theater, Dance, Metropolitan Performance), music , cinema and gastronomy.
The curator will give life to the exhibition by organizing the material received from the entire Bjcem network, highlighting those works that he deems most representative and emphasizing the interdisciplinary nature of a unique platform at European level. "The challenge - says Andrea Bruciati - is to create a living environment, building a path full of suggestions and open to an interculturality that has characterized Bjcem since its inception".
The concept of Mediterranea XVII, No Food's Land. The world after the EXPO revolves around the passage This monster that devours our senses, taken from Shakespeare's Hamlet. “I liked to create an analogy – recalls Andrea Bruciati – between the digestive process and the creative path according to the famous passage of the Bard which for me becomes a sort of metaphor of the artist's cognitive process and the incessant and almost gargantuan transformation that he implements of reality ”.
Artistic practice can be compared to assimilation, i.e. the bodily absorption of food when it is transformed into nourishment. Indeed, even the artist passes from the abstract idea to its concrete and real realization, making a change of degree, energetic, vital.
The installation itself, conceived in collaboration with the Studio Rotella of Milan, will follow a sinusoidal path, almost as if we were inside an organism that devours and transforms everything, in which the various dissonant elements can combine fluidly like a sort of puzzle .
Mediterranea 17 will officially open on 22 October, with the presence in the city of all the selected artists, who will enliven the Fabbrica del Vapore for four days with exhibitions, performances, concerts and workshops. The Biennale will then remain open to the public until 22 November. This edition is characterized by collaboration with two other Italian cities: Genoa, which from 19 to 22 October will host 100 artists selected for the Biennale, including them in an approach to the Milanese event, and Turin, which will organize the International Forum Biennale on 23 and 24 October. 3.0 | 30 years of creative productions, mobility, socio-cultural policies and new perspectives between Europe and the Mediterranean.
The results of two special projects will also be presented within the Biennale.
The first is A Natural Oasis, a Summer School aimed at the visual arts, promoted by the Republic of San Marino and Little Constellation, which began last year in the Castello di Montegiardino. Curated by Alessandro Castiglioni and Simone Frangi, its objective was to create a journey, study, training and research path, which involved 15 young artists.
The second, Motel Trogir. Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, dedicated to the artistic reflection on the homonymous modernist building, built in 1965 and designed by one of the most important architects of socialist Yugoslavia – Ivan Vitic. The results of the project, conceived by curators Natasa Bodrozic and Ivana Mestrov, will be presented in Milan by artists from Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia and the United Kingdom.
Founded in 1985, the Biennale takes place every two years in a different city in the Mediterranean and in its previous sixteen editions has involved a total of more than 10.000 young artists and over 70.000 visitors.
The Bjcem is an international network, whose Secretariat is based in Turin at the Cortile del Maglio, with more than 70 members and partners from Europe, the Middle East and Africa who, with their support, make the event possible by guaranteeing the participation of artists from the territories they represent.
