Living Matters by Claire Pentecost
15.07.2019 - 18.07.2019 from 10:00 to 17:00
A workshop by Claire Pentecost
to study compost through the body and dance forms
The Gymn, ex Conference room
Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea
July 15-18, 2019
We are at the end of the age of extractive agriculture, and now we have to give back nourishment to the terrain through the oxygenated decomposition of organic materials, otherwise considered waste. How can we live better on Earth? Compost is the answer to the question because it concerns reciprocity.
Compost is an alchemical phase in the life cycle. It is where death goes to prepare a new life. “We will use microscopes to witnessing the intricate activities and interdependent organisms that conduct this process. Aided by specialists in philosophy, biology, and sustainable farming – narrates the artist – we will spend time contemplating together, writing, drawing and dancing to perform our understandings of the miracle of death and life in compost.”
From July 15 to July 18, Castello di Rivoli will be the terrain and the gymnasium for the workshop Living matters. A workshop to study compost through the body and dance forms by American artist, Claire Pentecost. The workshop will involve a group of students and explore the concept of compost through the body and dance forms. It will end on July 18 with the performance – open to the public – Living Matters, followed by a conversation between the artist and Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev.
Living Matters is the first event of COMP(H)OST. This project investigates the concepts of hosting, coexistence, cooperation and cohabitation, transition and fertility through a transdisciplinary approach, which includes artworks, performances and public programs held in Castello di Rivoli and various venues throughout Torino.
COMP(H)OST is curated by a.titolo, NERO and Marianna Vecellio – Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea in collaboration with the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, and was conceived by Marianna Vecellio and Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy.
The project is supported by Compagnia di San Paolo within the program “ORA! Produzioni di Cultura Contemporanea,” with the collaboration of Duparc Contemporary Suites.
How to participate:
Teenagers, young people and accompanying adults wishing to attend, have to book the free four-day workshop. The workshop has a limited number of participants. The booking is subject to availability. Public interested in the initiative can participate in the lessons with the experts without registering. The workshop will be conducted mainly in English. According to the principle of reciprocity, which underlies the process of creating compost, the experts, together with some of the participants, will facilitate the understanding and communication among all.
Download the program: Workshop Comphost
Biography:
Born in Baltimore in 1956, Claire Pentecost is a visual artist, writer and professor of Photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The artist explores the strategies of power that build knowledge using different media like photography, painting, writing, performing art, while she carries out her activity of teacher and activist. For many years her work investigated the contested line between the “natural” and the “artificial” in specific contexts, such as the Institutions in charge of learning processes and production of knowledge. This research brought the artist to study the industrial food system with a particular interest in biotechnology in the agriculture field. Her works were presented in collective exhibitions such as Transmediale 05, Berlin 2005; Mapping the Self, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago 2007; Heartland, Smart Museum of Art, Chicago 2009; dOCUMENTA(13), Kassel 2012; 13th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul 2013; Rights of Nature: Art and Ecology in the Americas, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham2015;Terra Anima, Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Lawrence 2017.
For further information, please contact:
Education Department:
011.9565213
educa@castellodirivoli.org
a.titolo: 011 8122634
comphost.project@gmail.com