Category: Events

In Città Studi the photographic exhibition “Empty to lose: geometries of abandonment” by Riccardo Poma. From 7 March 2019 to 6 April 2019 it will be open to visitors in Biella at the Città Studi Library, C.so G. Pella 2b.

Five years later, the photographer Riccardo Poma returns to exhibit in the library with the exhibition Empty to lose. Poma was the first to exhibit his works in the Città Studi library in December 2014, inaugurating the successful “Crossing Art & Books” exhibition, which has now become a reference point for local artists.

The title of the exhibition is based on that of his recently published book, the result of a long research and photographic documentation on abandoned buildings and Piedmontese industrial archeology.

The project was born in 2013 when the young photographer and videomaker of Castelletto Cervo, graduated from the DAMS of Turin, began to collect his reportages in a blog entitled Empty to lose. A journey through the abandoned places of our country that made it known to a wide public even at national level. «Empty spaces to lose – Poma tells – is born and develops in the spaces proper to photography, which crosses the boundaries up to explode in literature, cinema and music through quotations and continuous references. It is a photographic project, which continually tends to hybridize with other forms of art “.

The exhibition presents a selection of photographs on abandoned factories: the former psychiatric hospital of Vercelli and the villas that stood next to these complexes.

For more information you can contact Città Studi Biella directly tel. 015 8551107, email: biblioteca@cittastudi.org, web-site: www.cittastudi.org/biblioteca, facebook: @cittastudibiblioteca.

“We must have the courage to be more arrogant. We know our value and our history: sometimes in the contemporary world it is necessary to raise the voice to be heard “: Nino Cerruti, turned 88 in September, gave a slogan of rare effectiveness to the candidacy of Biella among the Unesco creative cities, that took its first real steps on Thursday, January 31 at Palazzo Gromo Losa. The Biella designer is one of the most convinced testimonials of the campaign and did not want to miss the public meeting promoted by the city of Biella and the Cassa di Risparmio di Biella Foundation, promoters of the initiative together with Cittadellarte-Fondazione Pistoletto. And Michelangelo Pistoletto presented the logo he donated to the project, which recalls his artistic symbol, the Third Paradise: “I see this room full,” said the master, “and I think that when I returned to Biella I made the right choice” .

The enthusiasm of the two spokesmen, flags of biellesità in two different areas but with creativity as a common denominator, was one of the keys to the morning of work, led by the journalist of Il Sole 24 Ore, in turn Biellese, Maria Cristina Origlia.

The mayor Marco Cavicchioli and the president of the Cassa di Risparmio Foundation Franco Ferraris did the honors. “This candidacy, born from an intuition of Ferraris, is a point of arrival and a point of departure,” said the mayor. «It is the recognition of at least two centuries of textile culture, of the extraordinary capacity of entrepreneurs and of the equally extraordinary one of thousands of men and women who have worked in factories with an uncommon commitment and dedication. But it is also a starting point because from here a series of initiatives will be born that will help us to make known this territory and its excellence in the world ».

“This is the candidacy of a fantastic territory in all its components, from the lake to the Alps,” added Franco Ferraris, “and it is a territory that has shown its value throughout history. Our know-how is not in question: imagine how many people in the world today wear a garment made in Biella. It is news in recent days that the fashion system has reached a turnover of 100 billion. Much of this value is produced in our city ».

A city that aims to present itself together with the appointment with UNESCO: the publication of the “call”, or the call to the cities that intend to apply, is scheduled for February, the deadline for sending the documentation will be in June and a decision will be taken in the fall. The unity of intent was also noted by the non-Biellese experts present at the Palazzo Gromo Losa appointment: “I am here for the value of friendship” said Marco Magnifico, vice president of FAI, among the first to have signed a letter in support of the candidacy, “driven by the example of the Zegna family, among the first to have been able to combine business and landscape, and by Michelangelo Pistoletto, whose perspective has always been to push the gaze of others to embrace what his artist’s gaze he had seen in advance”.

The day continued with a dense succession of interventions, from the local historian Danilo Craveia to Angelo Boscarino, president of Bia, the consulting company that will follow the Biella practice, up to the representatives of the other Italian cities that are already part of the UNESCO network, from Fabriano, one of the nine already in the circuit of creative cities in which Biella aspires to enter, in Milan (literature), from Turin (design) to Alba (gastronomy). The development of the project will also be told by a website, under construction at www.biellacittacreativa.it, and by the Facebook page “Biella Creative City”.

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