Seascapes/Paesaggi di mare

Fondazione La Raia - arte cultura territorio, after the public encounter with Gilles Clément, botanist and garden theorist, and the site-specific project by the German artist Michael Beutler in May, continues its initiatives through further development of Nel Paesaggio, the project focusing on the theme of conservation and transformation of natural contexts. The next event is Seascapes/Paesaggi marini, a conversation between the German writer and curator Stefanie Hessler and the professor and geographer Franco Farinelli. The encounter, as the title indicates, focuses on the conservation and transformation of seascapes, their history and narration, also with an eye on the present situation of the oceans and man’s interference in their ecosystem. The starting point for the conversation will be the latest curatorial project of Stefanie Hessler: Tidalectis (TBA21-Academy, Vienna), in which thirteen artists have been invited to formulate their own visions of the ocean, revealing processes of adaptation and change triggered by man. The repercussions of these processes have led to an inevitable morphological alteration of the planet, where the rising sea level is simply the most evident factor. The interaction between the history of bodies of water and the action of man can be traced back for centuries, not only on a biological level but also in terms of politics, culture and geography. Just consider the history of the first conquests and trade, all the way to today’s phenomena of migration. Franco Farinelli, a geographer at the University of Bologna, will speak on the history of the sea, its mapping and its perception from antiquity to the present. Stefanie Hessler is a German curator and writer based in Sweden. She is the co-founder, with Carsten Höller, of Andquestionmark, an art space in Stockholm. Recent projects include: "Speed" at the Museum of Modern Art in Recife, Brazil (2016); 8th Momentum Biennial in Moss (2015); “Outside” at Index – The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation and Moderna Museet in Stockholm (2014). Hessler is a regular contributor to art magazines like ArtReview, and she co-edits "Life Itself" for Moderna Museet. She collaborates with Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary as the curator of TBA21-Academy and for the project "The Current,” a program of artistic research conducted on a ship with the aim of investigating human impact on climate change and the oceans. The final exhibition of this project was “Tidalectis.” Also for TBA21-Academy, she has recently curated the project “Fishing for Islands” with Chus Martinez and Markus Reymann. Franco Farinelli (Ortona, 1948) is the director of the Department of Philosophy and Sciences of Communication of the University of Bologna, where he teaches Geography. He has taught in Stockholm, Geneva, Los Angeles (UCLA), Berkeley, at the Sorbonne and the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. In his versatile, wide-ranging approach Farinelli has revealed the complex and ambivalent relationships between geographical representations of the world and its economics, politics, societies and, of course, territories. He has published many books, including Geografia. Un'introduzione ai modelli del mondo (2003), L'invenzione della Terra (2007) and La crisi della ragione cartografica (2009). His latest book Blinding Polyphemus: Geography and the Models of the World is now being printed.