Public space in Bolzano
Lungomare

• Angelika Burtscher

• Slavs & Tatars
• Manuel Raeder
• Luna Maurer
• Kasia Korczak
• Alexander Egger
• Roel Wouters

Manuel Raeder

Manuel Raeder reflects about the possible artistic interpretations of free space/tolerance. His design intervention becomes reflective design, an approach which he has already been testing for several years and for which he has been trying to find new definitions.

Fences originally exist to keep someone in or out. They are the exact opposite to openness or an open door where exchange and passage are possible. The starting point of this work is that of the current policy on immigration in Italy and EU. On the one hand borders are declared open, yet on the other hand the conditions for immigrants are becoming more and more complex, so much so as to make it hard for them to live a normal life.

With a fence, formed as a semicircular element, Manuel Raeder represents a part of the facade of the diocese of Bozen-Brixen in via Alto Adige in Bozen and allows his three-dimensional intervention to become a means of communication. His bent fence does not form a wall, but allows one to see through. The intervention in the centre will be animated with different materials forming words and patterns. These will change regularly throughout the exhibition period of the “Place it” project. The choice of location in the square next to the bus station was intentional, as it is a place of arrival in and departure from Bozen.

Luna Maurer und Roel Wouters

“Proposals for change” is an exercise without an objective, but which is based on the main idea that it is possible to change daily habits. Singular letters form words and these become sentences. It is about simple instructions, neither radical nor politically minded, which everybody can experience because they are taken from daily life. These are small, thought-provoking impulses, aimed at making the audience aware of everyday life, place, and origin, to the extent of reconsidering identity and reflecting on these issues. The ten sentences are exemplary and can be continued indefinitely.

Since we are in a country whose beauty is part of our collective consciousness, and where traditions and culture are intensively cultivated/maintained, the fear of losing them is all the stronger. A fear which leads to an increasing, ostentation and display of identity, which is often, when seen from a distance, perceived as a kind of forced rigidity. This exercise will remove fear of loss of identity and cultural heritage and encourage people to think differently.

Luna Maurer und Roel Wouters: Proposals for change

Alexander Egger

A word game where languages get mixed and points of reference are modified. The viewer is offered particular versions, relations and coherent perceptions depending on their own perspective. An attempt to make positions flexible: Each viewer recognises themselves as part of one group, but is simultaneously making up part of the other group from which they are excluded. The alien, the new, and the unknown form part of their own reality, just as the known and established do.

Established, defensive strategies of identity, which define and exhaust themselves through the social affiliation to an ethnic group, and the consequent separation from other ethnic groups in the country, are forced open by the broadening and inclusion of other apparent and visible realities such as tourists, migrant labourers. “Expansion of combat zone” brings uncertainty, but also depicts the dynamics of cultural hang-ups and the network of relations and refusal. The increase in complexity has to be seen as possibility for discourse.

Kasia Korczak / Slavs & Tatars

You say Autonomie, I say autonomia, So if you like Einwanderer and I like immigrante,
you say Integrierung and I say integrazione, I’ll be pro-Einwanderer and be anti-immigrante
Autonomie, autonomia, Integrierung, integrazione, for we know we need each other so we,
let’s call the whole thing off, better call the calling off, off.

Appropriating the lyrics of the classic Gershwin song, “Let’s call the whole thing off”, Slavs and Tatars proposes a re-reading of the comic track, sung by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in “Shall We Dance?”. Here, the contention focuses not on seemingly innocent words such as tomato or banana, but rather on terminology that touches the very issues pre-occupying Europeans today: immigration, identity, self-determination, etc. In an area that has had its fair share of experience dealing with such polemics, South Tyrol is an ideal setting for a public celebration of contention, as opposed to the often consensual approach advocated by those in power.

Südtirol–Alto Adige: History and region. A text by Lungomare Gallery (in German)
Details about the projects and the artists (in German)
Press release: Place it

Autonomous Province of Bozen/Bolzano-South Tyrol, Cultures Departments
Autonomous Region Trentino-Alto Adige
Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio
Città di Bolzano, Cultures Department
Finstral
Sasa

Supporter 2008:
Parkhotel Laurin, EOS – Solution for Business, Heinrich Gasser