Community Specific Archive collects a series of photographs by Paola Di Bello and a video-installation by Valerio Rocco Orlando born from the artists’ confrontation with the CSAC archive and with the students of the Three-year BA Program in Communication and Contemporary Media for the Creative Industries at the University of Parma The Community Specific Archive project was selected within the framework of the public notice PAC2022-2023 – Plan for Contemporary Art, promoted by the General Directorate for Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture, on the proposal of the CSAC Centre of Studies and Communication Archive – University of Parma. Through a series of workshops, the artists developed a research based on self-awareness and knowledge sharing, valorising the collection of the Study Centre and Communication Archive of the University of Parma as a trigger for the work. The result is a new production focused on the identity dimension of the territory, capable of reflecting the instances and urgencies of local society.For this occasion Paola Di Bello and Valerio Rocco Orlando produced a series of works composed of static images and moving images capable of resonating with the archive, the university and the city of Parma. The work expresses the synthesis of a participatory process flowing into a photographic production consisting of a series of collages, the result of a visual dialogue with the students, which draws on the photographic section used as raw material.
The archive comes out and returns to it revitalised and re-actualised. In parallel, the video installation expresses the formal synthesis of a pedagogical methodology based on the practice of active listening, on non-creative writing exercises and on dramaturgical and audiovisual reworking as a collective action. With the acquisition of this new corpus of works from the Centre’s heritage, the hope is to provide a useful key to penetrate and reread the complexity of the archive itself, in order to prolong its life by mending ties with the everyday life of its inhabitants. For the occasion, a publication published by Silvana Editoriale will be produced. In addition, as part of the project, on Tuesday 17 September 2024 at 11 a.m., in the Mulas Lecture Hall of the University of Parma, a round table on the topics discussed will be organised in the presence of the artists, the curator and researchers Guido Mannucci and Kevin McManus. Exhibition curated by Cristina Casero.
Paola Di Bello (Naples, 1961) is an artist and Professor of Photography at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, where she directs the Photography Department. Her research well represents the trajectories that photography has taken in the last thirty years, directing its interests towards installation-based operating methods, the result of the hybridisation between the conceptual vocation of previous generations and the social investigation that sees man and context at the centre of its interests.
Valerio Rocco Orlando (Milan, 1978) is an artist, lecturer in Multimedia Dramaturgy at the Brera Academy and doctoral student in Architectural and Urban Planning Engineering at the Sapienza University of Rome. Through practices ranging from workshops to video installations, his research takes art as a process of mutual analysis and knowledge and explores the osmosis between institutions, museums, academia and the social sphere.
Participants: Wafa Arfaoui, Silvia Balzarini, Jacopo Botto, Simone Cangiati, Marzia Carpitella, Giulia Conte, Gaia Conti, Gabriele Dalla Grana, Vladyslava Dovzhyk, Alice Dugaria, Liam Falleri, Rachele Ferrari, Claudio Magnano, Dominique Montanari, Sofia Piana, Alexia Piazza, Chiara Solari.
Quando: 14 September – 6 October 2024
Dove: CSAC – Abbey of Valserena – Via Viazza di Paradigna, 1 – Parma
