by Adela Lovric // Sept. 17, 2024
The expansive two-year program ‘Thinking Like a Mountain’ launched earlier this year in the Bergamo province with its first instalment, featuring a performance by Mercedes Azpilicueta, an exhibition of works by Lin May Saeed and site-specific installations by Sonia Boyce, Chiara Gambirasio and Studio Ossidiana with Frantoio Sociale. Initiated by and partly taking place at GAMeC – Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Bergamo, it also involved the communities and towns of Brembate, Castione della Presolana and Dalmine, with plans to further expand the scope of community engagement and continue emphasizing locality and sustainability.
Mercedes Azpilicueta: ‘Que este mundo permanezca,’ performance, 2024 // Photo by Paolo Biava
Involving a total of 20 artists or groups over two years, the program unfolds in several successive stages with artistic interventions in the public space, collective performances and creative workshops under the artistic direction of Lorenzo Giusti. Taking its title and inspiration from ecologist and environmentalist Aldo Leopold’s 1949 book ’A Sand County Almanac,’ the project encourages an alternative perspective on society and environmental sensitivity within Bergamo’s diverse landscape—from Alpine massifs to agricultural and highly industrialized urban areas—in order to spark an evolved and participatory environmental sensitivity.
Sonia Boyce: ‘Benevolence,’ Palazzo della Ragione, Bergamo, 2024 // Photo by Lorenzo Palmieri, courtesy GAMeC – Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo, © Sonia Boyce by SIAE 2024
The work of the project’s inaugural instalment that (com)passionately takes center stage is also a personal highlight: Sonia Boyce’s ‘Benevolence,’ a site-specific installation for the grand Sala delle Capriate at the Palazzo della Ragione in Bergamo’s old town. Rooted in appreciation for music and sound, Boyce’s relational practice delves into acoustic memory, creating spaces for collective creativity—and thus collectivity—to flourish. On par with the striking venue adorned with 17th-century frescoes (which inspired the title of the installation), six large screens monumentalize a video collage featuring locals and their music tradition. For this project, Boyce focused on Italian folksongs that sublimate social commentary into a musical form, and invited a group of students from Bergamo’s Gaetano Donizetti Higher Institute of Musical Studies to perform and improvise them. The filming took place in emblematic places of encounter: Piazza Vecchia, a historic square next to the exhibition venue, as well as the adjacent Angelo Mai Civic Library and the archive of the San Michele all’Arco book tower that was formerly a place of worship.
Sonia Boyce: ‘Benevolence,’ Palazzo della Ragione, Bergamo, 2024 // Photo by Lorenzo Palmieri, courtesy GAMeC – Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo, © Sonia Boyce by SIAE 2024
The starting point of the project was ‘Bella Ciao’—the ubiquitous anthem of antifascist resistance based on a late 19th-century folk song sung by female workers in Northern Italy’s paddy fields to protest harsh working conditions. Boyce filmed students singing ‘Bella Ciao’ from windows and balconies, and passersby spontaneously joined in. The resulting six-channel video installation powerfully illustrates the capacity of music to build and strengthen a sense of community; to create or unlock collective memories and kindle deep, visceral emotions tied to our shared humanity. One recent memory evoked by this performance is the balcony singing during the pandemic-related lockdowns. Much like in 2020, the impromptu singalong created a polyphonic disruption in a lively city square where sound and music are typically present but often taken for granted. The multiplicity of voices and perspectives converging appears to be mirrored in Boyce’s fragmented montage that shows multiple views of the participants and the location, and the arrangement of video screens that remind me, with a slight stretch of imagination, of a choir formation. While monumentally visual—especially in tandem with the ornate architecture of the exhibition venue—‘Benevolence’ primarily sounds (rather than visualizes) ideas of empathy-driven collectivity and the public space as its site of emergence. Echoing Brandon LaBelle’s ideas of sonic agency, the work shifts focus to the affective power of sound, which can inspire emancipatory practices and pave the way for new social formations.
Agostino Iacurci: ‘Dry Days, Tropical Nights,’ Installation view, Largo Treves, Fuorisalone, Milano, 2023 // Photo by Lorenzo Palmieri
The second stage of ‘Thinking Like a Mountain’ comes into play in October 2024 in Casnigo, Bergamo and Vertova. This new cycle of events will feature contributions by Marta Cuscunà, Gabriel Chaile, Yesmine Ben Khelil and Agostino Iacurci, continuing the theme of community engagement. Concurrently, GAMeC’s Spazio Zero will host a selection of works exhibited as part of the recent ninth edition of Biennale Gherdëina, also curated by Giusti with the shared focus on locality and the mountains as a narrative inspiration. Although the overlap between the two projects may cause some confusion, several artworks originally exhibited at the biennial in a less accessible area of Val Gardena in the Dolomites will now get a second chance to reach a broader audience in Bergamo.
Exhibition Info
Thinking Like A Mountain
Sonia Boyce: ‘Benevolence’
Exhibition: May 17-Oct. 6, 2024
pensarecomeunamontagna.gamec.it
Palazzo della Ragione, Piazza Vecchia, 24129 Bergamo, click here for map
