Monumenta Italia — Irene Pittatore
From 06/03/2024 to 28/03/2024
In the spaces of Recontemporary, at the foot of the Mole Antonelliana, an exhibition-workshop will be proposed to investigate the themes of the presence of women’s history in public space and in its narration. The works of Irene Pittatore will be presented to the public as tools for reflection on the themes of research and will be the starting point for workshops and meetings open to schools, universities and a heterogeneous public.
The exhibition, which was born as a traveling project, is conceived as a “work kit” that includes posters, a banner, videos and photographs of artistic performances that will be used each time as the incipit of the meetings with experts and activists.
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MONUMENTA ITALIA -
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MONUMENTA ITALIA -
IRENE PITTATORE
Press Kit
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Why Monumenta Italia?
If history is not told, history does not exist. Today more than ever we need to reflect on the idea of public heritage in relation to the history of women and the very concept of monumentality. The artistic heritage in public space is in fact still and only male. We move in an urban setting predominantly composed of men “who have made history”.
Most of the time erected and almost never tilted, the monument can be interpreted as a male “I” that never includes an “We”. The monument does not question history, it wants to be history. The public body is therefore the male body. The statues of women have no name, do not document a fact and are presented most of the time as archetypes, symbols, muses: prosperity, the homeland, justice, often represented reclining or kneeling at the feet of the hero, are symbols, almost never women protagonists of facts or actions. Starting from these premises, Monumenta Italia questions, investigates, researches with the intent of challenging the idea of monumentality in favor of an in-depth reflection on the public presence of women.
Some of the data taken from Monumenta Italia come from Monumentale dimenticanza (2018), a research project by the Centro Studi e Documentazione Pensiero Femminile APS aimed at surveying the presence of monuments dedicated to historical female figures in Piedmontese and Italian cities and municipalities. The census was supported by the Regional Council of Piedmont and the Consulta delle Elette del Piemonte in 2018. This census highlighted unequivocal data: in Turin, in the provincial capitals of Piedmont, in the 1088 municipalities with more than 5000 inhabitants, the number of monuments dedicated to women is small, if not zero. The dissemination and contextualization of this data will allow citizens to observe the monumental heritage of their cities with different eyes, becoming aware and measuring the so-called “epistemicide”: the liquidation and cover-up of women’s thought, which is also manifested through the lack of public recognition of civil, intellectual, political, artistic, scientific merits. A first step to advance, together and consciously, towards new paradigms of equity and equality.
Irene Pittatore
Irene Pittatore (Turin, 1979) is a visual artist and performer whose work explores, through the dimension of play and the construction of environments open to gentle collisions, the possible forms of sisterhood and solidarity to counteract the isolation and precariousness that accompany artistic and social work in our time. She uses multiple visual, narrative and participatory tools to create works that reflect on marginalization, discrimination and their symptoms, in a feminist and intersectional perspective. Her projects, dedicated to gender violence (L’amavo troppo e le ho sparano), diversity and inclusion (You as me / Nei panni degli altri), the housing emergency (Homeless heroines), body positivity (Floating portraits), remote photography (From a distance), are developed in relation to collaborations with museums, festivals, universities, non-profit organizations, including the Polytechnic of Turin, the University of Turin, the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation (Turin), Camera – Italian Center for Photography (Turin), Museum of Contemporary Photography (Cinisello Balsamo, Milan), Es Baluard Museu d’Art Modern i Contemporani (Palma de Mallorca), Capacete (Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo), Festival Jeu de l’Oie (MUCEM and Aix-Marseille Universitè), Biennale des Jeunes Créateurs d’Europe et de la Méditerranée, 12 Bienal de la Habana OFF.
irenepittatore.it
