plans for F.R.A.C.

The next event by UNIDEE in collaboration with FRAC will soon be upon us (Friday 23 September to be precise!), with this in mind Aastha and Rapha are collaborating with a street art collective from Turin…

(individual images by Aastha Chauhan)

“In conversation with Matteo Ferraresi and Eugenio Dragoni of URBE, Tornio (http://streetarto.com/tag/via-foggia-28/), we spent the day scouting for possible walls, spaces and concepts for the upcoming collaborative curation for the FRAC exhibition.”

Aastha Chauhan and Raphael Franco

watch the blog for more details…

up and coming events

The UNIDEE residents have been a busy lot over the summer, here are a few of the up and coming events…

The running order of the CO-LAB event organised by Nicoletta Daldanise on Sunday 18 September in Palazzo Ferrero, Biella will be:

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h 17.00 – 19.30 Gardens: WORKSHOP about natural dyeing techniques by Ibada Wadud

h 17.00 – 19.30 Gardens: WORKSHOP for green sculptures by Olga Karyakina with the collaboration of Giardino Botanico di Oropa

h 18.00 – 19.00 Yard: PRESENTATION of a musical workshop by Accademia Perosi

h 18.30 – 19.00 Caffetteria: BIKE TOUR arrival with Raphael Franco: projection of the documentation and free tea.

h 19.00 – 20.00 Yard: PRESENTATION of Open Mic Lab workshop by Groove aps.

h 21.00 Spazio Performance – Stalker Teatro: PERFORMANCE with wool by Karolina Rychlik

h 22.00 Gardens: PROJECTION by Elmas Deniz

h 22.30 – 23.00 Gardens: JAM SESSION by Collettivo MDM with LASER PROJECTION by Unidee Residents

collaborations

Visual artist Angel Masip Soriano speaks about his work here during UNIDEE:

“The work I’m currently doing is an investigation focusing on the urban voids that are, one way or another, generated in our immediate environment. These voids randomly interfere with our idea of urbanity and nature, conditioning our perception and our relationships with the environment. In these cases, the resulting physical space becomes the tangible document that reaffirms a natural dynamism within the urban and social structures.These spaces are often relegated to second place in our anesthetized perception, but certainly play a part in our imaginations of the urban margins; the city as a complex concept works as a unit because somehow there are limits and voids that are not understood in the urbanized context.

My research in Biella is built across on a series of interventions at random sites around the city. They have been selected because of their lack of functional or productive criteria.Through these aesthetic actions, made to revive the space visually in order to emphasize its latent meaning, a new relationship is built between citizens and the context in which they live.”  Angel Masip Soriano

Angel is currently collaborating with fellow resident Raphael Franco, on a series of light interventions in forgotten or “invisible” spaces around Biella, here are some images of their works in progress…

cyclingscaping project

Resident Raphael Franco is mid way through his socio-cycling-landscape project “cyclingscaping” below he tells us more about his work in progress:

images by Raphael Franco

“Through the interaction between artists, bike lovers and citizens of all ages, Cyclingscaping aims to challenge notions of visual identity and forms of experiencing, representing and relating to the landscape. By reinforcing the value of cycling as a sociable, healthy and enjoyable activity, the Cyclingscaping projects promotes informal encounters in which people can share experiences, talk about the city, its surroundings, history, places of interest and disinterest, in a way that cycling becomes not just a leisure or sporty activity, but an artistic, collective action, in which a collective knowledge is built through the discussion about the present, past and future of the city. Such a process will result in a informal cycling map of Biella and its surroundings.

After the first month of residency, when I started to make contacts and explore the centre of Biella, the project has developed positively, establishing partnerships, gathering friends as well as a number of Biellese citizens who are contributing to the development of the map. The first tours outside the city centre took place on the past few weeks and brought citizens from Biella and artists from UNIDEE 2011. There will be a bigger tour on September to launch the map within the city.

images by Raphael Franco

For me, the contact with local people is fundamental for the success of the project, so I’m quite happy with the rides led by Biellese individuals as well as with the dialogue about buildings and spaces with people here. As I’m asking them to talk a little bit about places they like/dislike and why, I’ve been having the opportunity to learn about a different history of the city; a history that unfolds through people’s life stories, which gives an experimental input to the work, rather than a pure analytic observation. An interesting aspect of working with this approach is to eventually confront opinions about the same place/building, taking as examples buildings such as the new residential buildings of Via Lamarmora, or the “Esselunga (the biggest supermarket in town) buildings”, which represent the “verticalization” of the city and the controversial clash between its new and the old architecture.” Raphael Franco

first bike tour of Biella (distance 9.1km)

presentations and proposals

This day began with presentations from Özgür Demirci (artist), Olga Karyakina (graphic designer/artist) and Raphael Franco (artist) and Cai Weidong (artist)…

Presentation from Cittadellarte Production office by Armona Pistoletto and Sabina Fanchini who came to tell us something about past projects such as “Cubi in Movimento/Cubes in Motion“. They also came to propose a project to the residents for the design on the illy coffee can…