ottobre
25
2018

VIAGGIO IN SICILIA #8 |Free Energy|Tribute to Ettore Majorana

Viaggio in Sicilia will be, as always, divided into two sections: a nomadic artist’s residence during the grape harvest period and an exhibition in the spring of 2019 which will include a site-specific installation by artists Claire Fontaine and a photographic project by Roselena Ramistella.

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Launching the eighth edition of VIAGGIO IN SICILIA, project for Art and Territory, conceived and produced by Planeta and curated by Valentina Bruschi, which will be innovative and with the theme, Free Energy, tribute to Ettore Majorana. Viaggio in Sicilia will be, as always, divided into two sections: a nomadic artist’s residence during the grape harvest period and an exhibition in the spring of 2019 which will include a site-specific installation by artists Claire Fontaine and a photographic project by Roselena Ramistella.

For the 2018-2019 edition we decided to take a new angle, involving the internationally renowned artist, Claire Fontaine, who from October 25 – 28 2018, will experience for a few days a deep immersion in the Sicilian territory to discover the lesser known and more mysterious places, in order to then elaborate and project an outdoor site-specific installation to be presented next year on Etna. This will be the beginning of a new project by Planeta dedicated to the creation of an itinerary of works of art in the estates of Sciaranuova and Feudo di Mezzo (Castiglione di Sicilia), on the north side of the volcano.

The photographer Roselena Ramistella (Gela, 1982. Winner of the Sony World Photography Award, section “Natural World and Wildlife”, 2018) will take short visual notes of the trip to be published on the blog of the residence, www.planeta.it/viaggioinsicilia, which will be constantly updated with images, texts and a photo-story with the places visited. During the trip, Roselena Ramistella, will elaborate a “visual essay” which will be published in the book catalogue produced for the eighth edition of Viaggio in Sicilia. Moreover, a selection of images will be exhibited in the Spring in Sciaranuova. 

THE PROJECT FOR THE EIGHTH EDITION

Eighty years after his premature and mysterious death, Ettore Majorana (1906-1938), the great Sicilian physicist, originally from Catania, inspired the theme of the eighth edition of Viaggio in Sicilia. A historical figure, who has become emblematic, both for the undeniable genius of his scientific researches and for his enigmatic disappearance, elements that have been the subject of various studies, as well as literary, artistic and musical works. The life and complexity of the scientific theories left by Majorana have opened new perspectives in the research of quantum physics and have disclosed several philosophical and narrative questions. Generations of theorists have developed his mathematical concepts, which have found different applications today, in our daily life, ensuring that the “Majorana case” is still open. The 1975 essay by Leonardo Sciascia, The disappearance of Majorana (trans. note), pamphlet on the edge of a novel, remains today one of the most fascinating texts on the presumed death of the scientist in 1938. The text has helped open the contemporary debate on the “choice to recede” following the involvement in the possible development of nuclear fission. A choice that today appears even more radical, almost a “philosophical disappearance”, in a world where visibility is pure media capacity.

The artist Claire Fontaine – Anglo-Italian duo born in 2004 by Fulvia Carnevale and James Thornhill – will work around these themes. Their name derives from a famous French brand of stationery for schools and they call themselves “readymade artists” because they develop neo-conceptual works in the form of installations, videos, neon sculptures. Sometimes, they deliberately resume, with irony, the works of other artists.

The nomadic residency will take place during the grape harvest on the Etna volcano, at the end of October, and the artists will be hosted in some of the Planeta estates: La Baronia in Capo Milazzo, Feudo di Mezzo and Sciaranuova on Etna. In particular, these last two wineries are located in the territories of Passopisciaro, where Ettore Majorana spent his summers and followed the harvest of the family’s properties, in the Villa Corso, his mother’s family house. Apart from several naturalistic excursions on Mount Etna, we will also visit two fascinating places that bear an aura of mystery: the Argimusco megalithic rocks on the Nebrodi mountains and the Fondazione Famiglia Piccolo di Calanovella in Capo d’Orlando. The Piccolo was a family of artists; Agata-Giovanna was a botanist, Lucio an acclaimed poet, and Casimiro, painter, photographer, and a scholar of the occult. They were often visited by their cousin Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, who wrote a large part of his masterpiece, The Leopard, in the Piccolo villa.

PLANETA FOR ART AND TERRITORY

Planeta is a Sicilian wine production company originating in 1995 from a long agricultural tradition, carried out between Sambuca di Sicilia and Menfi since the 16th century.  Alessio, Francesca and Santi Planeta established the company’s project with the co-operation of the whole family, for generations involved in the area of Sicilian agriculture.

Planeta’s wine production takes place in six estates lying within the beautiful Sicilian countryside, each one defined by a specific research and evaluation project. The company’s activities are strongly tied to making the most of the land, to its history and to its care through the use of renewable energy, the recycling of materials, sustainable agriculture, respect for the countryside, for the cultural heritage and for the communities within which Planeta operates.

The project Viaggio in Sicilia is also involved in this vision which aims to safeguard cultural and social history, while at the same time sustaining a strong emphasis on innovation and on the connection between tradition, modernity and territory.  Over the years many artists have been invited to participate, among them members of the Gruppo di Scicli, Alessandro Bazan, Gabriella Ciancimino, Malak Helmy, Adrianna Glaviano, John Kleckner, Andrew Mania, Pietro Ruffo, Sandro Scalia, Leonardo Scotti, Shobha, Luca Trevisani and Ignazio Mortellaro, the artist who has been designing the corporate identity of the company’s cultural projects since the sixth edition of Viaggio in Sicilia, in which he participated.

 

INFORMATION:

project: Planeta for Art and TerritoryViaggio in Sicilia

title: Free Energy, tribute to Ettore Majorana

edition: eighth

curated by: Valentina Bruschi

period: October 25th 2018, nomadic residency in Sicily; Spring 2019
installation of a permanent work inside the Planeta winery of Sciaranuova (Castiglione di Sicilia).

artists: Claire Fontaine

photographer: Roselena Ramistella

 

Hashtag social: #VIS8 #planetawinery

 

PLANETA PRESS OFFICE:

Concetta Bonini +39 333 733 75 13; concetta.bonini@planeta.it

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