Author: Dromedian

The review “Crossing Art & Books” of the Library of Città Studi Biella, which has become a reference point for local artists, is ready to host the next event.

Atarashii: textile origami, the textile art exhibition organized by the “Trame” Biellesi Association, will be inaugurated on Thursday 17 January 2019 at 17.30 in Città Studi.

The installation, in view until March 2, shows, suspended as flags or dropped as coats of arms on the windows of the corridor of the library, some quilts and blankets made with the Japanese technique called Atarashii (新 し い = new) which consists of folding cloth handkerchiefs instead of paper.

Textile origami that require hours of work to be realized and are the fruit of wisdom in sewing combined with the fruitful creativity of those who assemble them patiently. A mosaic of colors and fabrics that can satisfy the eye even of those unfamiliar with these artisan practices, in the hope that more and more people will become passionate about and approach the world of patchwork: the most widespread feminine textile art in the world.

The “Trame” Biellesi Association born in 2009 unlike other groups and associations that deal with patchwork and quilting in the world, does not use American or Japanese fabrics, but those produced locally by the Biella industries. A peculiarity that has allowed these hard-working sewing artists to be known nationally, through exhibitions and trade fairs.

The works on display were made by: Annamaria Vialardi, Gina Fracassetti, Laura Gallo, Lina Veronese, Nicoletta Galeno, others are the result of a collective work by the members of the “Trame” Biellesi.

The exhibition that dialogues with the reading proposal “Textile arts: a bibliography stitched around the fabric“, will be open to the public from Monday to Friday, all day 8.00 am – 7.00 pm and Saturday from 8.30 am to 6.00 pm. Reduced time instead Saturday: 16, February 23 and March 2 (from 8.30 to 12.30).

For more information, please contact the Città Studi Biella Library on 015 8551107 and write to: biblioteca@cittastudi.org.

The presence of the stylist Nino Cerruti and the virtual but weighty presence of the artist Michelangelo Pistoletto are two of the prestigious supports coming from the territory to Biella’s candidacy as a center of textile mastery, among the number of creative cities of UNESCO. The project, which aims to project the capital and the entire province on a world stage, was presented in the city in a public meeting held on the afternoon of Monday 17 December at the Museum of the Territory. In a packed hall, it was the Municipality, through the mayor Marco Cavicchioli and the councilor for programming Valeria Varnero, and the Cassa di Risparmio Foundation, with president Franco Ferraris, to do the honors, as promoters of the initiative.

Angelo Boscarino and Elena Federica Marini, from the consulting firm that has already led to the success of Alba’s candidacy, told the story in more detail. The Biellese delegation had already met them in October, on the journey to the Pollenzo University of Taste which had formally started the project. The very example of the city of Cuneo has served to list the possible advantages of such an international showcase: opening up to the world and making known not only the characteristics of the Biella manufacturing but also the events and events that are organized around. “Biella already has a virtual network of contacts with the entire planet,” said Angelo Boscarino. “It’s just about putting them to good use”.

The times are dictated by Unesco itself: in February the call for tenders for the presentation of the new candidacies will be released, for which there is time until June, while the decision will be taken in the autumn 2019. First of all, on January 31, a new public meeting is set at Palazzo Gromo Losa al Piazzo. Biella will compete in the category “manufacturing and popular arts”, along with another Italian city, Florence. “But compared to them,” said Boscarino, “Biella’s artisan and industrial knowledge has been able to innovate and look to the future.” In the list so far the Italian cities are nine: Rome for cinema, Pesaro and Bologna for music, Alba and Parma for gastronomy, Turin for design, Milan for literature, Fabriano and Carrara for manufacturing, the same category in which aspires to enter Biella. So far, there are only six European cities recognized as masters in architecture and crafts: in addition to Carrara (marble) and Fabriano (paper), there are Sheki in Azerbaijan for silk, Gabrovo in Bulgaria for wood, Barcelos in Portugal for ceramics and Limoges in France for porcelain.

A public meeting to illustrate the way to become a UNESCO creative city: the invitation comes two months after the presentation of Biella’s candidacy for the inscription in the list of “Unesco Creative Cities”, that is the cities in the world that have focused on their history and creative identity for its own future development and network cooperation, in our case textile excellence. The initiative is the mayor Marco Cavicchioli, signatory of the candidacy proposal, and the president of the Cassa di Risparmio di Biella Foundation Franco Ferraris, who supported the project from the beginning. The appointment is for 5 pm on Monday 17 December 2018, in the conference room of the Museum of Territory in via Quintino Sella.

«The consultancy company that has been entrusted with the task», says Valeria Varnero, city planning assessor «has already held some exploratory meetings to get closer to our Biellese; but it is important that the reasons and the modalities of this candidacy are shared and illustrated to a very wide audience. This is why we have planned, in synergy with the Cassa di Risparmio Foundation, a public meeting open to all those who can help us make our candidacy more effective».

The great fervor and attention aroused by the launch of this “challenge”, which took place during the press conference during the journey to the University of Gastronomic Sciences of Pollenzo, are a good omen for the new adventure that sees the territory involved as a whole .

The document to be presented to UNESCO will be physically drawn up by the company Bia Srl (which has already made the candidacy of Alba a winner): during the meeting the candidacy path of the city will be illustrated, ideas and answers to the questions will be collected and curiosity of the participants.

contemporaneA. Artists tell each other is a reflection on female art by Irene Finiguerra.

The exhibition covers the activity of artists who, between the nineties and today, have carried out their research according to forms and types sometimes very distant from each other, but always faithful to an authentic investigation of the self or of the relationship with the world, with the other.

They are artists who tell different stories, narrations that intertwine with their own identity, to recognize themselves in a genre, to identify themselves in a body with violence or tenderness, in the irony towards stereotypes or in the eccentricity of being irreducible solitary.

Today the interest for women artists has been concentrated for too long on figures who have acquired the stigmata of the myth: let’s think of Artemisia Gentileschi, Frida Kahlo, Marina Abramovic. In their midst and between them there is a whole generation of women who recognize the value of the “historical”, as older sisters, but also found new paths, with rigor and tenacity, because, as Alice Neel writes: “All art does not care if you are a woman or a man. One thing you need to have is talent and you have to work like crazy “.

For more information:

https://www.palazzoferrero.it/mostre/29-contemporanea-artiste-si-raccontano