Gea Casolaro / Mare Magnum Nostrum
Gea Casolaro
Mare Magnum Nostrum
We are all on the same water
The international project Mare Magnum Nostrum by renowned Italian artist Gea Casolaro (curated by Leonardo Regano) is a project supported by Italian Council (8th Edition, 2020) program to promote Italian contemporary art in the world by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism. The main holder of the project is the italian and in cooperation with the Croatian Association of Fine Artists in Split (HULU Split), the project will be presented to the Split audience this Thursday.
Mare Magnum Nostrum is a participatory art project that, thanks to the cooperation of various institutions, associations and the public, is being developed in several countries of the Mediterranean. It will be presented exclusively to the Croatian public in the gallery of the Southeast Tower of Diocletian’s Palace, and after visiting several other Mediterranean countries, it will become part of the permanent collection of the National Museum of Ravenna.
It is a large art installation depicting the Mediterranean Sea that the artist continuously reflects and reinterprets through photographs of people invited to participate in the project: she actively seeks the cooperation of viewers to create a photographic archive of the Mediterranean woven from photographs of everyday human rituals, holidays, landscapes etc.
An art installation set up in the gallery space of the Southeast Tower gives visitors a vivid experience where the audience has a view of all 360 degrees of the Mediterranean from the center of the sea. During the exhibition, visitors are invited to add and / or replace existing images with new photographs taken from the archive by placing them on the corrisponding part of the coast.
Gea Casolaro invites the people of Split to send photos of everyday life from the Mediterranean coast to the project’s website – photos showing at least a small piece of the sea – taken in any country, place, time and season. All collected photos will become an integral part of the project, and the website that will follow it and grow over time, will become a platform rich in photos and different views of the Mediterranean sea, so day by day will develop rhizomatic cartography composed of stories intertwined on this sea, which has always been a source of exchange of civilizations – a true common pool that we share and that unites us – with the aim of abolishing the thought “we on this coast and those on the other side”: not a border between people, but a universe that includes us.
The exhibition will be open from 12th to 26th of November 2020 and admission is free.
INFORMATION
Gea Casolaro
Mare Magnum Nostrum
Project supported by
Italian Council (8th Edition, 2020) program to promote Italian contemporary art in the world by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism
Curated by
Leonardo Regano
Promoted by
Direzione Regionale Musei dell’Emilia-Romagna
Croatian Partners
Hulu – Split
Muzej Grada Splita
Umjetnička akademija u Splitu
Fotoklub Split
Cultural partner
qwatz contemporary art platform
For further info about the project and the call to action:
Social media
Facebook Mare Magnum Nostrum
Instagram mare_magnum_nostrum
Official hashtag: #maremagnumnostrum
Social media Italian Council
Facebook @CreativitaContemporanea
Instagram @creativita_contemporanea
Hashtag: #MIBACT #CreativitaContemporanea #ItalianCouncil #ContemporaryItalianArt
Gea Casolaro, lives between Rome and Paris. For over twenty-five years, her work investigates our relationship with images, current events, society and history, through photography, video, installation and writing. Her research aims to activate a permanent dialogue between experiences and people, to broaden our capacity for analysis and knowledge of reality through the points of view of others.
Her works can be found in many museums and public collections including: MAXXI, National Museum of XXI Century Arts; Mart – Museum of Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto; CNA – National Center for Audiovisual, Dudelange, Luxembourg; Laboratory Museum of the Mind, Rome; MU.SP.A.C. Experimental Museum of Contemporary Art of L’Aquila; Farnesina Experimenta Collection, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Rome; Collection of the Quadriennale Foundation of Rome.
In 2020, her project Mare Magnum Nostrum won the Italian Council award promoted by Direzione Generale Creatività Contemporanea, ufficio Mibact per la contemporaneità the Italian Cultural Ministry.
She works with The Gallery Apart, Rome.