BAM – BIENNIAL ARCHIPELAGO MEDITERRANEAN

Press Release | Palermo, 14 October 2022

MeNO Association and Merz Foundation present

UNSATURATED

III edition of BAM – Mediterranean Archipelago Biennial

Artistic director 

Andrea Cusumano

23 September 2022 – 22 January 2023

Palermo

The appointments of BAM – Biennale Arcipelago Mediterraneo continue , the international research festival in the field of visual arts, performing arts and theater dedicated to the peoples and cultures bordering the sea and focused on the themes of hospitality and dialogue. The third edition – under the artistic direction of Andrea Cusumano , curated by the MeNO Association and the Merz Foundation, under the patronage of the Municipality of Palermo – was inaugurated on 23 September and presented itself through exhibitions, interventions, performances and meetings, offered to the public from the historic center to the Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa. The widespread palimpsest, in fact, is the result of an experimental research carried out by about 150 artists, who have drawn inspiration from the city, for the city and in the city for their aesthetic and conceptual exploration, experiencing Palermo as a creative hub, an ideal territory for experimentation, an inclusive laboratory in which artistic residencies are the protagonists.

On the wave of the same momentum linked to the importance of research, the Open Conference ETRN Palermo opens on Saturday 15 October at 12, a talk carried out by the European Theater Research Network, at the Church of SS. Eunus and Julian. The event open to the public will focus on the importance of exploring and unleashing the dramaturgical and narrative potential of space, in view of the imminent birth in Palermo of a center dedicated to these issues. Participants: Peter Boenisch of the Department of Drama at Aarhus University; Paul Allain of the University of Kent; Bryce Lease of the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama –University of London; Alexandra Portmann of the Institute of Theater Studies at the Universität Bern; Anna Sica, Delegate for Relations with Theater and Entertainment Institutions at the University of Palermo; Per Kap Bech Jensen, theater director of the Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium – Odin teatret; Pete Brooks, CSM Performance Design course leader and Director of Imitating the Dog, in the UK; Andrea Cusumano, coordinator of CeSDAS – International Experimentation Center for Dramaturgy Applied to Space and Roberto Albergoni, president of the MeNO Association. 

Fondazione Merz proposes, on Sunday 16 October at 7 pm at the Teatro Massimo, the concert of the finalists of the fourth edition of the Mario Merz Prize | Sector Music , the only international prize for art and music. In concert the unpublished works of Katherine Balch, William Dougherty, Farzia Fallah, Füsun Köksal and Claudia Jane Scroccaro, specially conceived for the ensemble of the WADI project, promoted and supported by the Merz Foundation in Palermo. Admission is free upon reservation upon reservation by writing to merzprize@fondazionemerz.org , the concert is also available in streaming on the Merz Foundation Facebook channel.

Space then to the appointments of Sète-Palermo: after the exchange organized between the artists of the French maritime city Sète and those of Los Angeles in 2019, the SLA association – which organizes an exchange every two years between Sète and other port cities around the world – organizes with Palermo the second edition of its contemporary art festival. There were 14 Sicilian artists (Giuliana Barbano, Emanuela Barilozzi Caruso, Barbara Cammarata, Ruby Cicero, Andrea Cusumano, Gandolfo Gabriele David, DimoraOz, Cécile Donato Soupama, Daniela Nancy Granata, Marco Petrigno, Andrea Kantos, Alessandro Librio, Ignazio Mortellaro, Rossella Tomorrow, Linda Randazzo, Maria Donata D’Urso) will be guests in Sète and Montpellier from 12 to 18 September and there will be 17 artists from Sète in Palermo from 18 to 22 October, in collaboration with BAM. From the Nancy Granata Printing House to Palazzo Branciforte,complete program attached ), these and many other locations will host the results of the exchange that has placed Palermo as a creative hub, an ideal territory for experimentation, an inclusive laboratory where artistic residencies are the protagonists.

The Loggiato di San Bartolomeo, which will host a section of the Sète collective on the first floor, hosts the BAM Seafront exhibition on the second floor, with the video “What not to do/art fever” by the Kosovar artist and New York resident Sislej Xhafa and the video performance “Quaranta” by Salvatore Fenu, both made for BAM in collaboration with the Municipality of San Vero Milis in Sardinia. Again, “Triptych of removed faces” by Gaetano Costa, an “handcrafted” digital work that required several months of work and should be considered an “open” work, given that the artist will continue to increase its detail in a sort of constant work in progress, “Mare Chiuso” by Emanuele Lo Cascio and the large canvases by the Austrian artist Trudi Bloom in residence in Palermo. While on the ground floor “Felix Taeda II” by the Israeli artist Rafael Y. Herman, who, after the one-man show inaugurated last April at Palazzo Sant’Elia, continues his bond with Palermo by making his poetics emerge from the darkness of the ground floor of the Loggiato San Bartolomeo, which is born and structured in the darkness. “BAM Seafront” will last until November 27th (opening on October 19th at 6pm).

Flora Marina is instead the result of the residence of the Milanese artist Emanuele Caprioli, promoted by the Barbaro Foundation to support contemporary research and creativity. 

Between June and October 2022, the artist had a time and place available that allowed him to mature his ideas and produce new works, without foreclosure of form, technique or style. The spaces in via Butera 24, therefore, will host from 21 October (opening at 4 pm; and then continue until 20 November) a multimedia site-specific installation that investigates the iconography of Mediterranean Posidonia, a marine plant endemic to the Mediterranean, which it plays a key role in maintaining biodiversity and protecting beaches from erosion. 

The exhibition, curated by Maria Chiara Di Trapani, is made up of six small and medium-sized glass bas-reliefs, a soundscape and a relief print with transparent varnish on acetate paper unrolled like a long parchment.

The updated BAM program is available online at bampalermo.com .