La montagna magica (The Magic Mountain)
by Micol Roubini
Video Installation
4 channels, 2023, Super 16mm transferred to 2K, sound, 24’30’’
Project realised with the support of the Directorate General for Contemporary Creativity within the Italian Ministry of Culture as part of the 11th edition of the Italian Council (2022)
Promoted and produced by Lo schermo dell’arte
With the contribution of nctm and art
Curated by Gabi Scardi
the project
The Magic Mountainby Micol Roubini is among the winning projects of the 11th edition of the Italian Council. Through a video-installative work, the Milanese artist investigates the ecosystem of Europe’s largest asbestos quarry in Balangero (TO).
Active between 1918 and 1990, the Balangero asbestos mine is today at the centre of an extensive decontamination project. It presents itself as a suspended territory where the still legible signs of the intense mining activity that lasted over eighty years coexist with the traces of a progressive wilderness and the reappearance, both natural and induced, of various plant and animal species.
The Magic Mountain analyses the dense network of relations between man and land, a proper ecosystem extending from the quarry to the small towns on its slopes. The work brings together the oneiric imagination of those who now live near the former quarry, the process of colonisation of the contaminated land by plants and lichens, and the fascinations at the origin of the history of the use of asbestos, a mineral that has been considered magical since ancient times due to its extraordinary fireproof properties.
The delicate transition phase that is currently underway contrasts a recent past marked by some of the darkest events in Italian industrial history and a future reconversion whose function is still to be defined, between hypotheses of a mining theme park, leisure areas, or photovoltaic fields.
The Magic Mountain has become part of the collection of the MAN in Nuoro and was presented at the Talbot Rice Gallery of Edinburgh in the exhibition The Recent curated by Tessa Giblin, dedicated to climate change caused by human activity.
Curated by Gabi Scardi, the project brings together as cultural partners: Talbot Rice Gallery, PAV Parco Arte Vivente, Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art MMSU Rijeka, Fundación Cerezales Antonino y Cinia.
The 2024 publication La Montagna Magica edited by NERO Editions and curated by Gabi Scardi, with contributions by Giovanni Aloi, Francesco Carnevale, Elke Krasny, Riccardo Venturi and Fabrizio Zandonatti supports the project.
Micol Roubini
She was born in 1982 in Milan, where she lives and works. She is a graduate of the Brera Academy and the Univeristät der Künste in Berlin. Since 2021 she has been teaching New Languages of Visual Communication at CFP Bauer, Milan. Her research investigates the balance between man and territory, between cultural systems and landscape morphology, between history, migration and individual memories.
She has exhibited at Museo Casa Testori (2021), Premio Matteo Oliviero (2017), Hotel Charleroi (2013). She realised the project Atti clandestini per terre mobili(Fondazione Palazzo Magnani 2021). She participated in video exhibitions at Villa Medici (2021), Pavilion (Poznan 2021), LightCone (Parigi 2017), Scotland’s Centre for Photography (2012).
She has conducted masterclasses (Locarno Film Festival 2022) and participated in residencies including Fondazione Pistoletto (2017), Scottish Sculpture Workshop (2013).
Her film La strada per le montagne (2019), in competition at Cinéma du Réel and other European festivals, won the Corso Salani Prize at the Trieste Film Festival 2020.
Gabi Scardi
She is a curator and critic of contemporary art, who has been engaged in public projects and social practices for many years. She curates solo exhibitions, group exhibitions, and public projects. She collaborates with Italian and international art and cultural institutions, including Pac, Milan; Museo del Novecento, Milan; Pirelli Hangar Bicocca, Milan; MAXXI, Rome; Venice Biennale, Venice; Royal Academy, London; Louisiana Museum, Copenhagen.
Among the curated projects are: Chiaralice Rizzi and Alessandro Laita, The Memory of the Air, winner of the Italian Council, Marubi Museum, Shkodër, Albania, 2021-2022; Emilio Fantin, Risvegli, winner of the Italian Council, Mambo Bologna, Palazzo Barolo Turin, Baruchello Foundation Rome, University of Chicago; Maria Papadimitriou, Why look at animals AGRIMIKA’, Greece Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale; restoration of Alberto Burri’s Teatro Continuo, Milan, 2015.
Since 2011, she has been the artistic director of nctm e l’arte.
PROMOTIONAL ACTIVITIES
The Recent
Curated by Tessa Giblin
Talbot Rice Gallery, University of Edinburgh
October 28, 2023 – February 17, 2024
Works by Eglė Budvytytė, Helen Cammock, Dorothy Cross, Regina de Miguel, Mikala Dwyer, Nicholas Mangan, Angelica Mesiti, Otobong Nkanga, Katie Paterson, Micol Roubini, and Simon Starling.
The exhibition explores geological, evolutionary, human, and environmental time through painting, sculpture, film, photography, tapestries, installations, and archives that demonstrate what art can do to expand human imagination and situate our actions within a deep and future-oriented temporal framework.
La montagna magica
Florence, Palazzo Strozzi – La Strozzina
November 14-19, 2023
during the 16th edition of Lo schermo dell’arte
La montagna magica has been exhibited at Florence, Palazzo Strozzi, La Strozzina during the 16th edition of Lo schermo dell’arte
DOWNLOAD THE TRANSCRIPTIONS OF DREAMS
With the contribution of
Regione Toscana – Giovani Sì – Toscanaincontemporanea2023
Micol Roubini_La montagna magica
Exposition curated by Gabi Scardi
Nuoro, Museo Man
March 28 – June 16, 2024
On the occasion of the acquisition of Micol Roubini’s video installation The Magic Mountain by the MAN Museum in Nuoro
Workshop_La montagna magica
Nuoro, Museo MAN
29 marzo 2024 ore 17:00-19:00
Other promotional activities
Micol Roubini in dialogue with Silvia Lucchesi and Riccardo Venturi
Milan, nctm and art
February 9, 2024, 6:30 pm
As part of the program of meetings dedicated to the protagonists of the contemporary art scene at nctm and art Micol Roubini dialogued with Screen of Art director Silvia Lucchesi and and Riccardo Venturi, art historian and critic.
A version of the two-channel work expressly made for nctm’s spaces was presented.
The Magic Mountain
Kunsthalle Wien
March 5 2024, 3:00 – 6:00 pm
The work is screened as part of the Ecologies of Care seminar hosted by the Kunsthalle Wien Karlsplatz Museum, Wien. The screening is followed by a conversation between artist Micol Roubini and curator Gabi Scardi. Ecologies of Care Seminar is organized by Academy of Fine Arts Wien , Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory and Kunsthalle Wien; it is supported by ERSTE Foundation.
Micol Roubini: “The Magic Mountain”
Rijeka (Croatia), MMSU
April 10th at 6:30 PM
The Magic Mountain was presented at Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rijeka. The screening was preceded by a video interview with the artist Micol Roubini.
The Magic Mountain
A work in relation to the territory
Turin, PAV
April 22th at 5:30 PM
In relation to the video installation project The Magic Mountain, Micol Roubini dialogued with Bice Fubini, chemist and president of the Interdepartmental Center for the Study of Amiants and Other Harmful Particulates “G. Scansetti,” and with project curator Gabi Scardi.
The talk was followed by the screening of a single-channel version of the video
Workshop: Vetas Compartidas (shared veins) with Micol Roubini at FCAYC, Léon
FCYAC, Léon (Spain)
May 2 – 4, 2024
The workshop took place over three days in various locations in the province of León, Spain, to explore the history of the talc industry in this area. Micol Roubini led the workshop, sharing her research and experience on the extraction processes gained while working on La Montagna Magica.
PROJECT PARTNERS
The main partner of the project is Talbot Rice Gallery, the public art gallery of the University of Edinburgh. Talbot Rice Gallery originated from a 19th-century natural history museum, and today its research and exhibition activities are focused on contemporary artistic production. In the era of Brexit, Talbot Rice Gallery aims to explore boundaries, with a particular emphasis on female self-empowerment, positioning itself at the forefront of research and creative practice.
The video installation “The Magic Mountain” will be exhibited in the group exhibition “The Recent,” curated by Tessa Giblin, October 28, 2023 – February 17, 2024.
The main partner of the project is Talbot Rice Gallery, the public art gallery of the University of Edinburgh. Talbot Rice Gallery originated from a 19th-century natural history museum, and today its research and exhibition activities are focused on contemporary artistic production. In the era of Brexit, Talbot Rice Gallery aims to explore boundaries, with a particular emphasis on female self-empowerment, positioning itself at the forefront of research and creative practice.
The video installation “The Magic Mountain” will be exhibited in the group exhibition “The Recent,” curated by Tessa Giblin, which will open in October 2023.
The artwork produced will be acquired by the MAN Museum in Nuoro, a permanent public institution that is unique in its kind in Sardinia, dedicated to the study, preservation, and promotion of modern and contemporary art. Sardinia is characterized by a high percentage of mining territory, and the mining activity practiced over time has altered the landscape of the island. This characteristic creates a strong connection with the artwork conceived by Micol Roubini and makes MAN the ideal place to host and preserve it.
Project supported by the Italian Council (11th edition, 2022), the program aimed at supporting Italian contemporary art in the world promoted by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity within the Italian Ministry of Culture
Proposing entity: Lo schermo dell’arte
Cultural partners: Talbot Rice Gallery, PAV Parco Arte Vivente, Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art MMSU Rijeka, Fundación Cerezales Antonino y Cinia. The work will be acquired by the MAN_Museo d’arte della Provincia di Nuoro.
Scientific Partner: the Interdepartmental Center “Giovanni Scansetti” at the University of Turin (President: Prof. Bice Fubini, Director: Prof. Elena Belluso) promotes multidisciplinary research projects, conferences, workshops, schools, and seminars on health and environmental issues related to breathable toxic particulate matter. The Center focuses on studying asbestos, artificial fibers, nanoparticles, silica and quartz, metallic dust, urban particulate matter, and, in general, any other material that, when inhaled, may affect the respiratory system.
As part of the Center’s public engagement activities, Prof. Sergio E. Favero-Longo (Department of Life Sciences and Systems Biology) and Prof. Francesco Turci (Department of Chemistry) contributed to the realization of the magic Moutain by providing scientific content and participating in the film.
