Living Matters

LIVING MATTERS is the first appointment of COMP(H)OST, a project that looks at the issues of exchange and coexistence, cooperation and cohabitation, through the use of artistic productions, seminars, workshops, conferences, panel discussions, talks and live performances, which will take place at the Castello di Rivoli and in different settings throughout the city of Turin. COMP(H)OST is curated by a.titolo, NERO and the Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, in collaboration with the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam, and is sponsored by Compagnia di San Paolo as part of the call “ORA! Produzioni di Cultura Contemporanea”, with the hospitality of Duparc Contemporary Suites and the collaboration of Film Commission Torino Piemonte.

LIVING MATTERS is a project by the American artist Claire Pentecost. It is a laboratory, a training and seeding ground that allows a group of young people to get involved in a number of activities open to the public, the ingredients of which are earth, dance, philosophy, the human body, biology, writing, drawing, conversation, music, and friendship. How can we live better on Earth? According to Claire Pentecost, “compost is the main answer to this question, because it concerns reciprocity,” it allows us to give back to the earth and nourish it.

From the 15th to the 18th of July, during four days of activity at the Castello di Rivoli, the artist guides the research, exploration, invention and movement of these young people alongside moments of reflection and debate with science and philosophy experts, which the audience can participate in. The laboratory involves the Greek choreographer and dancer Chrysanti Badeka in collaboration with COORPI. LIVING MATTERS ends with a collective performance followed by a talk between Claire Pentecost and Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, the director of Castello di Rivoli and dOCUMENTA (13), in which the American artist took part in 2012.

COMP(H)OST is a project in which the notion of composting meets the one of hospitality. With its references to the concepts of soil, waste and fertility, compost is a place of mixture and constant transformation between states of matter, of alliances between forms of life, in which “similar” and “different” are co-present in a condition of vitality and growth.

Inspired by the compost metaphor developed by philosopher and biologist Donna Haraway in her texts, the formula of comp(h)ost proposed in this project takes on two complementary nuances: an organic one, which concerns ecological issues in all their various articulations, and a social one, which examines the political and economic problems of our time. In this dual variation, the project explores directions of artistic research and contemporary thought that in the light of current emergencies provide visions and productive suggestions of new scenarios and possible new life practices.

By evoking the generative and fertilizing power of the guest, COMP(H)OST starts from the figure of the artist as an embodiment of mobility, of “extraneousness” and as an essential element for the triggering of processes, in order to reactivate their function as investigators about the themes of cohabitation, ties, cooperation, cohabitation and the relationship between nature and artifice, between waste and resource, between what is and what could be.

With regards to this, COMP(H)OST will involve, as well as Claire Pentecost, also the artists Rossella Biscotti and Otobong Nkanga, as part of a programme of seminars, workshops, conferences, panel discussions, talks and live performances, which, starting in autumn, will welcome among others the duo of Dutch artists and designers Metahaven in a discussion with the curator Leonardo Dellanoce, of Diann Bauer, artist and co-founder of the xenofeminist collective Laboria Cuboniks, of philosophers Vinciane Despret and Emanuele Coccia, continuing with further dates in the beginning of 2020.

COMP(H)OST declines the notions of hospitality and compost, as an expression of exchange, synergy and mixture, in the very structure of the project, which is realized through a real engagement of the city and its territory. People, stories, places, planning and skills are involved in the development of the research and projects of the invited artists, in order to establish new connections and give the audience a chance to learn about contexts and knowledge that are sometimes not very well known outside of their fields of specialization. In this perspective, the first round of COMP(H)OST involved experts, artists, and realities such as the PAV – Parco Arte Vivente and the non-profit organization COORPI Coordinamento Danza Piemonte.

COMP(H)OST is also a Communication Laboratory, headed by director and filmmaker Irene Dionisio and photographer Francesca Cirilli, for the production of audiovisual and photographic documentation about the project. Started in May, the Laboratory of COMP(H)OST is hosted at the Film Commission Torino Piemonte and involves a group of young artists, photographers and filmmakers, selected through a call for proposals, composed by Daniele Alef Grillo, Laura Barrios, Michela Curti, Matteo Grasso, Federico Pozzuelo, Isabella Quaranta, Michela Ronco, Giovanni Sambo, Francesca Ticca, Giulia Travaglio, Ettore Ventura and Carla Vivalda.

COMP(H)OST is based on an idea from Marianna Vecellio and Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, and is curated by Francesca Comisso and Luisa Perlo for a.titolo, Marianna Vecellio for the Castello di Rivoli, Lorenzo Gigotti, Valerio Mannucci and Valerio Mattioli for NERO.

More info out soon.