Terre vulnerabili 1/4

The Terre vulnerabili project encompasses four separate exhibitions. Since this is a project that is intended to mirror as closely as possible the growth of a living organism or the development of a plant over time, each exhibition represents a unique, unrepeatable moment that is different from the others, just like the various phases of life.
All of the works in the four exhibitions of the Terre vulnerabili project are site-specific and/or have been redesigned specifically for the space of HangarBicocca. The project is all about acknowledging the concept of vulnerability from the physical and moral points of view, embracing it as a positive and vital element in life. Vulnerability is that singular capacity for empathy that allows us, as human beings, to recognise and accept our own ethical responsibilities towards others, the wider community and the environment. This is an evolving, germinating, organic project, which will be developed over the course of its lifespan, enabling the public to play their part in it and allowing the artists to continue to cultivate and nourish it. In this way, all those involved will become in some sense responsible for the exhibition and for its continued existence. The project does not come to an end with the staging of the exhibition – on the contrary, it is further developed through a process that includes a series of meetings with the artists involved to create together a new mode of sharing in the event itself. Vulnerability is, then, expressed not only in the works but also in this curatorial approach, which is based above all on mutual appreciation, sharing and collaboration between the artists – an approach that will necessarily lead to unpredictable experiences.
The four exhibitions encompassed by the project are, in part, the result of the meetings with artists held in Milan from September 2009 onwards. The monthly meetings have involved the discussion and development of the process for the four exhibitions. The project aims, then, to indicate a direction and propose a new language at a time in which our planet and the systems that govern it are showing serious signs of breakdown. The four exhibitions of the Terre vulnerabili project have entrusted their political and ethical statement to the work of two great masters: director Ermanno Olmi and architect Yona Friedman – who through their work have been able to provide a form of food for thought that unites memory and hope, utopia and realisability.

Photos: © Agostino Osio