VISIO consists of an exhibition and a series of seminars, round tables and meetings. By encouraging international dialogue and mobility, VISIO has fostered the development of a wide network of institutions, artists and professionals who work with moving images, creating a significant archive that maps a new generation of artists based in Europe. Over 900 visual artists have applied to participate in the first seven editions of the Programme.
The project, curated by Leonardo Bigazzi, will be held in Florence in conjunction with the 14th Lo Schermo dell’Arte – Cinema and Contemporary Art Festival (10 – 14 November 2021). The participants will be twelve young European artists who work with moving images; they will be selected through an open call organized in collaboration with some of Europe’s leading art academies, schools and artist residencies. The deadline to apply is Sunday, 26 September 2021.
The exhibition of works by the participants, titled Thinking Beyond – Moving Images for a Post-Pandemic World, is produced with NAM – Not A Museum, the contemporary art programme by Manifattura Tabacchi, and will be held from 9 November to 12 December 2021.
The VISIO Young Talent Acquisition Prize has been confirmed for the seventh edition. It will be awarded to one of the participating artists and consist in the acquisition of a work by the Seven Gravity Collection, a private Italian collection that focuses on video works by contemporary artists. Through this prize and partnership with the Seven Gravity Collection, Lo Schermo dell’Arte aims to support young artists by encouraging the practice of collecting moving image works and video installations.
Structure
VISIO – European Programme on Artists’ Moving Images has a five-part structure:
1. Thinking Beyond – Moving Images for a Post-Pandemic World
The exhibition, curated by Leonardo Bigazzi, will feature the participants’ works in the spaces of Manifattura Tabacchi. The exhibition aims to celebrate the transformative power of art and the ability of artists to translate tragic and traumatic circumstances as generative opportunities. The exhibition project will present twelve films, videos and installations and a public programme of events, also online.
2. Festival
The participating artists are invited to attend the screenings, meetings and lectures on the festival calendar, and are encouraged to actively participate in the discussions. The main topics will then be explored in greater depth during seminars and conversations with the curators and artists hosted by the festival. This year’s edition will feature works by Matthew Barney, Rä di Martino, Oliver Laric, Sara Sadik, Barbara Wagner and Benjamin de Burca, Andrew Norman Wilson, among others.
3. VISIO. Young Talent Acquisition Prize
This prize, to be awarded to one of the participants, consists in the acquisition of that person’s work by the Seven Gravity Collection, a private Italian collection that focuses on video works from contemporary artists. The prize will be assigned by the Founding Members of the Seven Gravity Collection and the winning artist will be announced on the final evening of Lo Schermo dell’Arte.
4. Seminars
A series of seminars will be conducted by artists and curators who will talk about various aspects of their practices and research methods. The seminars, which will last two hours each, will be structured so as to include moments of discussion and allow the featured guests and the participants to share their experiences. In previous editions these seminars have been led by Isaac Julien, Marine Hugonnier, Philippe-Alain Michaud, Filipa Ramos, Deimantas Narkevicius, Mark Nash, Maria Lind, Alain Fleischer, Heinz Peter Schwerfel, Sibylle Kurz, Sarah Perks, Erika Balsom, Shirin Neshat, Manuel Cirauqui, Domenico Quaranta, Forensic Architecture, Ana Teixeira Pinto, Omer Fast.
5. Conversation Room
This informal environment will be used for round tables and one-on-one meetings, forty minutes long, where participants can talk to the artists, curators, critics, producers and directors of international institutions hosted by the festival. Whether used as an opportunity to present portfolios or simply have a conversation, these are meant to be moments of dialogue that will foster the participants’ professional growth and extend their network of international contacts.
Nelson Bourrec Carter
Nelson Bourrec Carter is a French-American filmmaker and visual artist. His practice combines photography, film, installation and performance while his research revolves around the links woven between real territories and fantasized landscapes, influenced by the weight of popular imagery. His work focuses mainly on the influence of American iconography on identity construction and racial awareness, and operates from places whose hybridity, history or architecture lend themselves to a new interpretation. His films have been shown in festivals such as New Directors/New Films, Entrevues Belfort, Vila do Conde, in historic institutions like the Cinémathèque Française, but also in museums such as MoMA in New York or the Musée d’Art Contemporain du Val-de-Marne.
Alexandre Erre
Alexandre Erre was born in Nouméa and lives and works between France and Kanaky (New Caledonia). His artistic approach is centered on his experience as a queer person coming from Melanesia, and on the celebration of the cultures and communities of Oceania. It explores more broadly issues related to memory, exoticization and insularity. In his projects, he seeks to open spaces for healing and pleasure, in response to the violence that populates our daily lives and our imagination. Erre’s works has been presented in exhibitions and film festival such as: Arte Nova 100 (青年艺术100), Beijing; Tales from the seashore, Hong-Ti Art Center, Busan, Korea; Arthaus Movie Theater, 41st Havana Film Festival, Cuba; 31e Festival – Les Instants Vidéo, Videodrome 2, Marseille.
PHILT HAUS
PHILTH HAUS is an art collective of six members, or entities: ANDRA, SYLLA, LYLEX, COLY, ROCO, and PHILIP. This community was founded by ANDRA and now interacts as an ever-evolving system of transitional member entities searching for a form. It is a material activation of the immaterial, a process of transubstantiation. Considering how this is a process of refining embodiment, each entity is rooted in an essential trans experience.
The collective is based and has been exhibited in Los Angeles, New York, Boston, and Honolulu and currently is a participant of 2019-2021 De Ateliers Artist Residency in Amsterdam.
Roman Khimei e Yarema Malashchuk
WINNERS OF THE SEVENTH VISIO YOUNG TALENT ACQUISITION PRIZE: THEIR WORK DEDICATED TO THE YOUTH OF THE WORLD II (2019) WILL BECOME PART OF THE SEVEN GRAVITY COLLECTION.
Roman Khimei and Yarema Malashchuk work together on the border of visual art and cinema since 2013. They graduated as cinematographers from the Institute of Screen Arts in Kyiv. Through films and video installations, they explore the image of the crowd, as a separate character in history and culture.
They were awarded the Grand Prix at the Young Ukrainian Artists Award (Muhi 2019), Best Short Documentary at Festival Internacional de Cine Silente, Mexico (2019), as well as the main award of the PinchukArtCentre Prize (2020). The video installation Dedicated to the Youth of the World II was exhibited at numerous shows including frei_raum Q21 in Vienna (2019), HMKV, Dortmund (2021), Baltic Triennial 14, Vilnius (2021), and their debut documentary feature New Jerusalem premiered at Docudays International Film Festival 2020. The film received the Special Mention Award at Kharkiv Meetdocs. The duo has also recently exhibited at Future Generation Art Prize 2021.
ChongYan Liu
ChongYan Liu studied at The Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, and then moved to Paris to obtain a degree in Artists & Exhibition-related Careers, and a master in Fine Arts at École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts. Her research is focused on personal narratives that the artist explores through a combination of moving images and texts. The use of extended long-takes in her videos allows to slow down and reflect on urgent topics currently at the center of the public debate, but strictly related to the artist’s private life, like abuses and familiar conflicts. Liu presented her works at Brunnenstraße 45, Berlin; ENSBA, Paris; Collectif Jeune Cinéma, Paris; Les Yeux Ouverts, Paris; Villa des Arts, Paris.
Eleonora Luccarini
Eleonora Luccarini studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna, Università IUAV di Venezia and Sandberg Institute, where she is currently enrolled. She recently participated in Live Arts Week X festival curated by XING and in the residency project Nuovo Forno del Pane at MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna. She has exhibited at Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo (2021), Quadriennale di Roma (2020), OGR Torino (2020), Cripta747, Torino (2020), Anonima Kunsthalle, Varese (2018) and LOCALEDUE, Bologna (2017). In 2019, she was selected among the participants of the summer school School of Expressions held by Valentinas Klimašauskas, Viktoria Draganova, Julie Béna, Zuzanna Czebatul, Pavel Sterec and Wojciech Kosma at PLATO in Ostrava (CZ). The same year she took part in the workshop New Methods held by Amalia Ulman at Università IUAV di Venezia.
Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi
Her practice mutates in and out of sculpture, installation, moving image, and interdisciplinary research. Her works explore imaginations of freedom at the intersection of film-making and film theory, critical refugee studies and postcolonial studies, personal/prosthetic memory and individual/collective histories. Nguyen-Chi studied Fine Arts at Städelschule and Film at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is currently pursuing PhD research in Film at the University of Westminster. She has exhibited her work at Art Hub Copenhagen; Atletika, Vilnius; Centro di Musica Contemporanea di Milano; Haus, Vienna; Kunstverein Nürnberg, Nürnberg; Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt; Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham; Sàn Art, Saigon; Site Galleries, Chicago; Whitechapel Gallery, London.
Eoghan Ryan
Eoghan Ryan engages moving images, installation, performance, sculpture and collage as sets or episodes to deal with the disintegration of language. His research stems from a need to co-habit, over-identify and subvert the western canon and re-apply it for immediate social engagement. Ryan’s moving image works exist in the gap between public space and private trauma. His works has been exhibited at Foundation Pernot Ricard, Paris; Kunstervein Freiburg, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; South London Gallery; Rowing, London; 427, Riga; Spike, Berlin; Serralves Museum, Porto; IFI, Dublin; Outpost, Norwich; Kem, Warsaw; Cubitt, London; Kim? Contemporary, Riga; Plastik Moving Image Festival, Dublin; CAC, Vilnius; Catalyst Arts, Belfast; BDP, Berlin; New Shelter Plan, Copenhagen; EEFF, London; FACT, Liverpool amongst others. Ryan recently completed his residency at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten.
VEGA
VEGA (Francesca Pionati and Tommaso Arnaldi) is a duo of visual artists and directors based in Rome. Their practice emerges from the urgency to hybridate elements that are predefined or have been previously contextualised – like archive materials, traditions or rituals – with contemporary languages and aesthetics, putting into question all foundational elements in order to make room for what is buried to resurface. They mostly investigate stories and subcultural phenomena from Italy impressed by a Gothic Cosmic-Mediterranean vision. Born within the intersection of video art and docu-fiction, their work also incorporates performance. Their work has been shown at MACRO, Rome; Triennale Milano; MEGA; and will be exhibited at Sant’Andrea de Scaphis. In 2021 they curated Iniziative di II in Rome.
Arnaldi studied Visual Arts at RUFA, while Pionati completed her film studies at La Fémis in Paris and Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg.
Janaina Wagner
Janaina Wagner works with cinema, photography, scenography, drawing, video and installations, researching the relations of limit, control and contention that human-kind establishes with the world. Currently in residency at Gasworks and doing a PhD with Le Fresnoy-Studio National des Arts Contemporains. Wagner participated in several artistic residencies, such as FID Campus – Festival International de Cinéma de Marseille, Bolsa Pampulha, Festival Mondes Possibles – Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers, Casa Tomada, Anarcademia W139 Amsterdam and NES Skagaströnd. Among the main exhibitions, stand out A natural History of Ruins – Pivô (Brazil), Casa Carioca – MAR Museu de Arte do Rio de Janeiro, Ensaio de Tração – Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo (Brazil), Simultan Festival XV – Unseen (Romania), 10 ª Semana de Cinema do Rio de Janeiro.
Thinking Beyond
Moving Images for a Post-Pandemic World
a curated by Leonardo Bigazzi
produced by Lo schermo dell’arte and NAM – Not A Museum
Thinking Beyond – Moving Images for a Post-Pandemic World intends to celebrate the transformative power of art and the ability of artists to read tragic and traumatic circumstances as generative opportunities. The exhibition will feature twelve films, videos and installations and a public programme of events, also online.
VISIO. European Programme on Artists’ Moving Images – 10th Edition
curated by Leonardo Bigazzi
promoted and organised by Lo schermo dell’arte
in collaboration with
NAM – Not A Museum, the contemporary art programme by Manifattura Tabacchi.
it receives the contribution of
MIC – Direzione generale Cinema e audiovisivo
Regione Toscana
with the patronage of
Comune di Firenze
with the support of
Fondazione CR Firenze | with the contribution of Intesa Sanpaolo
Fondazione Sistema Toscana | Cinema La Compagnia
Manifattura Tabacchi
Ambasciata e Consolato Generale del Regno dei Paesi Bassi
Forum Austriaco di Cultura Roma
in collaboration with
Fondazione In Between Art Film
MYmovies
Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze
Main Sponsor
Gucci
Sponsor
B&C Speakers
Findomestic
Unicoop Firenze
Treedom
Media Partner
Flash Art
The participants are selected in partnership with:
- Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera
- Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze
- Art House (Scutari)
- AV-arkki – The Centre for Finnish Media Art (Helsinki)
- Careof (Milan)
- Centro de Residencias Artísticas, Matadero Madrid
- Cité internationale des arts (Paris)
- De Ateliers (Amsterdam)
- Gerrit Rietveld Academie (Amsterdam)
- La Casa Encendida (Madrid)
- Le Fresnoy-Studio national des arts contemporains (Tourcoing)
- Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten (Amsterdam)
- Royal College of Art (London)
- Royal Institute of Art (Stockholm)
- Städelschule (Frankfurt)
- Universität der Künste Berlin
- Vilnius Academy of Arts
- WIELS, Contemporary Art Centre (Brussells)