Designing while Walking, Walking while Designing

A week of exploration and wandering on the hills of Oasi Zegna in Trivero (Piedmont region) experimenting group and individual dynamics, which feed creative processes. The aim is to design an object or situation that adds new thinking, interaction and behaviour to the Oasi.
The module explores the idea of creating interventions in this very particular area looking at its nature, architecture, and history. What can be added? What can be fixed? How to contribute to an aesthetic experience of the environment?
A cooperation of ideas, under the guidance of Martino Gamper, will encourage individual proposals envisioned in the frame of symbolic values of the venues visited during the tours scheduled for the module.
Participants will collectively reflect on the level of research and project enacting relationships with the territory and trying to catch the nature of site-specific projects spread over the Trivero area.
The theoretical and curatorial contribution by Matteo Lucchetti and Judith Wielander will stimulate the discussion, analysing in depth experimental relationships between arts, design within the social sphere, through the presentation of selected case studies from The Visible projects’ archive.
During the conclusive public presentation, ideas produced during the workshop session will be discussed together with Michelangelo Pistoletto, Anna Zegna an J.J. Martin (relevant journalist and fashion blogger) with the hope of acknowledging, in particular, proposals coherent to the context, sensible to its ethos and peculiarity, and able to enact collaborative creative processes on different levels.

SCHEDULE

June 6th
morning
Guided tour to Cittadellarte (curated by Elena Rosina), including the Pistoletto, Arte Povera collections and temporary exhibitions. Introduction to the Theorem of Trinamics, the symbol of the Third Paradise and the concept of Demopraxy.
Arrival at Lanificio Ermenegildo Zegna and walkthrough the mill.
Lunch in the mill canteen.
afternoon
Guided tour to the Ettore Olivero Pistoletto’s painting gallery, to Daniel Buren’s artwork on the mill’s terraces and to Casa Zegna’s archive and exhibition space.
Guided tour to Oasi Zegna.
Back to Cittadellarte.

June 7th
morning
Collective discussion.
afternoon
Free exploration of one of these three scenarios in Oasi Zegna:
• Conca Rododendri – the mountain garden, with the rhododendrons in full bloom and the art work by Dan Graham reflecting their colours;
• Margosio – the productive mountain, visit to the goat farm and steep pastures of Valsessera looking out onto Mount Rose;
• Bocchetto Sessera – forest bathing, walking and resting in the woods to enjoy regenerating effects on mind and body.
Back to Cittadellarte.

June 8th
morning
Group session with the guests: Matteo Lucchetti and Judith Wielander curators of “Visible. Where art leaves its own field and becomes visible as part of something else.” (A project undertaken by Cittadellarte-Fondazione Pistoletto in collaboration with Fondazione Zegna). They will present and discuss selected case studies from Visible’s archive, that deploy new experimental relationships between arts and design.
afternoon
Workshop session.

June 9th
morning and afternoon
Workshop session.
evening
Presentation and discussion on Martino Gamper's artworks.

June 10th
morning
Workshop session.
afternoon
Public presentation of ideas and projects emerged during the workshop sessions, followed by a group discussion with Michelangelo Pistoletto, Anna Zegna, Cecilia Guida, Paolo Naldini, Juan Esteban Sandoval and J.J. Martin.

REFERENCES
The mentor will prepare a reader for participants with key texts, some of which will be discussed during the week.

BIOGRAPHY

Martino Gamper (b. 1971, Merano, Italy) lives and works in London. Starting as an apprentice with a furniture maker in Merano, Gamper went on to study sculpture under Michelangelo Pistoletto at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna. He completed a Masters in 2000 from the Royal College of Art, London, where he studied under Ron Arad. Working across design and art venues, Martino Gamper engages in a variety of projects from exhibition design, interior design, one-off commissions and the design of mass-produced products for the cutting edge of the international furniture industry. Gamper has presented his works and projects internationally, selected exhibitions and commissions include: ‘design is a state of mind’, Serpentine Sackler Gallery, London (2014); ‘Period Room’, Palais De Tokyo, Paris (2014); ’Tu casa, mi casa’, The Modern Institute, Glasgow (2013); ‘Bench Years’, London Design Festival commission, V&A Museum, London (2012); ʻGesamtkunsthandwerk’ (Karl Fritsch, Martino Gamper and Francis Upritchard), Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth – New Zealand (2011); Project for Café Charlottenborg, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2011); ‘Bench to Bench’, public street furniture in East London in collaboration with LTGDC (2011);‘100 chairs in 100 Days’, 5 Cromwell Place, London (2007);‘Wouldn't it be Nice...Wishful thinking in Art & Designʼ, Centre dʼ Art Contemporain, Genève (2007). Gamper was the recipient of the Moroso Award for Contemporary Art in 2011, and the Brit Insurance Designs of the Year, Furniture Award in 2008 for his project ‘100 Chairs in 100 days’.

GUEST
Visible is a contemporary art research project devoted to producing and sustaining socially engaged art practices in a global context. Operating since 2010, it has taken a global and interdisciplinary approach to researching the physical and theoretical spaces in which these practices affect society. In 2011, Visible initiated the biennial Visible Award, the first European award for socially engaged artistic practices.
A nomadic institution, Visible has worked with a variety of formats, collaborations, and institutions, including Tate Liverpool; Creative Time, New York; Van Abbemuseum  in Eindhoven; Kunsthaus Graz; Kadist Art Foundation, San Francisco; Center for Historical Reenactments, Johannesburg; and The Serpentine Gallery, London. Recently, Visible has become part of the Extended Network of Public Art Producers (ENPAP), a network of institutions including Situations  (Bristol, United Kingdom), Statens Konstråd / Public Art Agency (Stockholm, Sweden), and Creative Time  (New York). The Visible project is curated by Matteo Lucchetti and Judith Wielander and supported since its start by Cittadellarte - Fondazione Pistoletto in collaboration with Fondazione Zegna.