Eco e Narciso / Stupinigi Fertile

MAURIZIO CILLI
ANDREA CARETTO E RAFFELLA SPAGNA FRANCESCO GABRIELLI MARZIA MIGLIORA GIUSEPPE MOCCIA SANDRINE NICOLETTA ANNA SCALFI EGHENTER

REBECCA DE MARCHI

Since 2013, Eco e Narciso has been collaborating on the Stupinigi Fertile project to build up a network of rural heritage sites in the historical Savoy territory of Stupinigi. It is helping to curate an artistic programme to redefine the semantic unity of a landscape that, in spite of the changes it has undergone and though often misunderstood and neglected, is surprising in terms of its exceptional consistency. Agriculture has been picked as the foundation thanks to which finding, once again, a shared awareness of a place.
The attention was centred on investigating the historical reasons of Stupinigi, the presence and the role of agriculture, the physical and interior relationship with nature, the relationships among its organisational components.
And it is in the indetermination of this unexpressed cultural and social capital that new possibilities of activation generate. One has to rely in the contemporary artistic research as a picklock able to unveil the sediments, to wonder on the social and cultural themes carried on in Stupinigi and, on a general level, to give space to the ethic and aesthetic dimension, to foresee a significance or a bunch of significances to inhabit this limb of territory (considering as an inhabitant anyone residing, living, visiting the territory).
As indicative signs, the artists moved searching among historical documents, collecting testimonies, travelling the area, analysing the social structures of the past and questioning those of the possible future, taking into account the local history in between its aulic and everyday component, measuring with the potential of the agreement between rural and urban dimension, experimenting then paths of citizenship, allowing a dialogue between the material and the immaterial culture of the territory. From this analysis they took hints to offer through their artistic production, ways to celebrate a renovated perception and treatment of the places.
The artists invited share the attitude to pay a significant attention to the relational dimension, to the involvement of the citizens, institutions and local associations in the artworks process, providing an important spin-off for Stupinigi Fertile in terms of seam among the different interventions and an empowerment. The other aspect that links them together is the profundity of the commitment with which they deal with the themes investigated, fundamental references since they recall the responsibility needed to look at Stupinigi with an urgency of considering it a common good.