Jun 19 - Contemporary Art Exhibtion Opens Next Week
On June 23 at 6:30 p.m., the Minister for Culture, Steven Linares, and the Minister for Education and Culture of the Republic of San Marino, Giuseppe Maria Morganti will open the two inaugural days of The Voices of The Sirens / Le Voci delle Sirene by /Little Constellation/ – an eagerly awaited contemporary art exhibition event, dedicated to the geo-cultural micro-areas and small states of Europe, sponsored by the Government of Gibraltar and designed by the artists and curators Rita Canarezza & Pier Paolo Coro and Alessandro Castiglioni of the Little Constellation Network from the Republic of San Marino, which will run in Gibraltar until 21 August 2015.
This new Little Constellation event was preceded by two years of intense work for the first time simultaneously in two countries: Gibraltar and San Marino, with artworks involving site-specific research, workshops, conferences and the creation of new artistic productions specially in both territories. Gibraltar has renovated one of the historic ramparts of the old city walls, Montagu Bastion, to host Listen to the Sirens – Space for Contemporary Arts, where experiments have been conducted with five site-specific projects by artists from Gibraltar and other small states. San Marino, in addition to having planned the whole project through the Little Constellation Network, has likewise produced new works of art specially designed in its territory and intended for this important occasion.
The rich opening programme, to be held in various exhibition venues, will begin on 23 June at 6.30 p.m. in the Gustavo Bacarisas Gallery, which will present the first two sections of the exhibition:
The section Closest Voices will consist of site-specific works developed in Gibraltar: In a Low Voice by the Swiss artist Miki Tallone; Dancing Under the Shadows, by the Gibraltarian artist Ambrose Avellano; Margins by Hekla Dögg Jónsdóttir from Iceland, Spaceship Command and the installation This is Little Constellation by the duo from San Marino Rita Canarezza & Pier Paolo Coro, and Kitchen, by the Gibraltarian group Creative Gibraltar.
The section Other Voices consists of other works by artists who are particularly significant for the Little Constellation network: Doris Drescher, Barbara Geyer, Pierre Portelli, Irena Lagator, Lito Kattou and Leontios Toumpouris, Mark Mangion, who have worked specially for The Voices of the Sirens in relation to specific features of their countries: Cyprus, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta and Montenegro.
The day will end at The Alameda, Gibraltar Botanic Gardens, with a performative action by the San Marino artist Martina Conti, whose action will fuse visual arts with theatre and dance.
The third section of the exhibition, Voices from Further Away, will be inaugurated on June 24 at 6.30 p.m. at Listen to the Sirens / Space for Contemporary Arts - Montagu Bastion, with two works specially produced by the Republic of San Marino:
Distance, by the Icelandic video artist Ingibjorg Magnadottir and the San Marino actors Luigi Busignani, Giulia Ceccoli, Lucilla Di Meco, with casting by Fabrizio Raggi, and external locations by Sara Rossini.
Poor Sisters of St. Clare by the British director and filmmaker Nina Danino, a native of Gibraltar. Assistant director Daniela Barulli and sound recordings by Dave Hunt. A sound installation, built up through a deeply moving dialogue with the director of the twelve Cloistered Nuns of the Monastery of Santa Chiara di Valdragone in the Republic of San Marino.
Finally there will be two parallel projects:
Scheduled on 24 June from 10.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. is the third event of the Summer School A Natural Oasis with Performing History, at the Gibraltar Garrison Library.
The School will be curated by Alessandro Castiglioni and Simone Frangi, with the participation of Jennifer Ballantine Perera, Director of the Garrison Library, and the French artist Kapwani Kiwanga and young artists and researchers: Sarah Capesius, Martina Conti, Viola Conti, Lito Kattou & Leontios Toumpouris, Alessandro Di Pietro, Katrín I. Jonsdóttir Hjördísardóttir Hirt, Nico Macina, Francesca Mangion, Orestis Mavroudis, Mnemoscape (Elisa Adami, Alessandra Ferrini), Michela Pozzi, Giacomo Raffaelli, Jacopo Rinaldi, from small states and countries bordering the Mediterranean. Some of the installations by young artists will be exhibited at the Garrison Library for the whole period of the event.
From 16 to 30 June at the Cultural Centre John Mackintosh Hall art-lovers can visit the exhibition of the Gibraltar Spring Visual Art Competition, which supplements the artists of the territory of Gibraltar in The Voices of the Sirens.
A comprehensive catalogue of the whole project will be produced by Mousse Publishing.
www.listentothesirens.org www.littleconstellation.org
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