Gineceu+Estigma 2023
With roots in the Gardens of Palácio de Cristal, Gineceu+Estigma addresses the fantastic world of botany, crossing scientific, artistic, philosophical, spiritual and ecological thought with approaches in which academic, artistic and empirical knowledge intersect and complement each other.
Gineceu+Estigma offers talks, workshops and interpretative tours of the garden by invited educators, researchers and artists.
Saturday, July 1, from 10am to 6pm
Serpentesse: workshop with Chiara Camoni
Chiara Camoni conducted a printing workshop on natural silk, using plants and flowers collected by the participants, guiding dialogues and conversations about elements of her work, offering possible interpretations and reflections.
Over time, plants left marks on the silk, creating patterns and designs and revealing unexpected elements. These images are known in various cultures as elves, fairies or xapiris, and represent the spirits of nature, emphasizing their importance in caring for and relating to the environment.
Chiara Camoni (1974, Piacenza) is an artist based in Fabbiano, Alta Versilia. She works with drawing, plant prints, video and sculpture, mainly with ceramics. Her works are often created through collaborations with friends and family, in spontaneous groups or in organised seminars and workshops. Recently, Camoni has worked in collaboration with Il Centro di Sperimentazione, exploring various forms of shared authorship, and, with Cencilia Canziani, organised the conference cycle La giusta misura [The right measure]. Some of her recent exhibitions include Hic sunt dracones at GAM, Turin (2022-23), Persones Persons, at the 8th Biennale Gherdëina, Val Gardena (2022) and LA DISTRUZIONE BELLA at SpazioA, Pistoia (2022).
Over time, plants left marks on the silk, creating patterns and designs and revealing unexpected elements. These images are known in various cultures as elves, fairies or xapiris, and represent the spirits of nature, emphasizing their importance in caring for and relating to the environment.
Chiara Camoni (1974, Piacenza) is an artist based in Fabbiano, Alta Versilia. She works with drawing, plant prints, video and sculpture, mainly with ceramics. Her works are often created through collaborations with friends and family, in spontaneous groups or in organised seminars and workshops. Recently, Camoni has worked in collaboration with Il Centro di Sperimentazione, exploring various forms of shared authorship, and, with Cencilia Canziani, organised the conference cycle La giusta misura [The right measure]. Some of her recent exhibitions include Hic sunt dracones at GAM, Turin (2022-23), Persones Persons, at the 8th Biennale Gherdëina, Val Gardena (2022) and LA DISTRUZIONE BELLA at SpazioA, Pistoia (2022).
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Saturday, July 1, at 5pm
Serpentesse Book launch + conversation
Serpentesse is a sound. The sound that comes before the word, plays at repeating the voice of what it calls. It is formed by the friction of matter, the sliding and the vibration of the world when the world, for an instant, listens to the sound of the breath of life passing through it.
Serpentesse is also a book published by a+mbookstore, with the support of GAM - Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, in Turin. It includes over 20 years of Chiara Camoni's work, with over 200 photographs of her works and installations, as well as 10 sections focused on the exploration of procedural and performative aspects. The book includes 11 texts written by artists and curators who have presented her work internationally, along with an extensive introductory essay by Elena Volpato, the book's editor.
The book launch included a talk between Elena Volpato and Chiara Camoni, moderated by Matilde Seabra.
Serpentesse is also a book published by a+mbookstore, with the support of GAM - Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, in Turin. It includes over 20 years of Chiara Camoni's work, with over 200 photographs of her works and installations, as well as 10 sections focused on the exploration of procedural and performative aspects. The book includes 11 texts written by artists and curators who have presented her work internationally, along with an extensive introductory essay by Elena Volpato, the book's editor.
The book launch included a talk between Elena Volpato and Chiara Camoni, moderated by Matilde Seabra.
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21 de julho, às 19h00
Artist talk: Flesh of Wastelands, with María Auxiliadora Gálvez
On July 21, within the context of the workshop Into the Wild, the architect Maria Auxiliadora Gálvez presented, in a conference open to the public, her recent work developed within the “Platform of Somatics for Architecture and Landscape” (PSAAP).
The lecture addressed the relation in between bodies and cities from the experience of the project “Wastegrounds. Walking the Revolutionary Landscapes in the Somatic City”, presented in book format, titled DESCAMPADOS, in 2022.
Along with the lecture it was also addressed walks, happenings, installations and performances occurred mainly in between 2015 and 2020 but also projects regarding the Somatic City: an urban entity able to assume in its systems and materiality the ecological and socio-political vicissitudes of multiple bodies. You just have to imagine a narrative where some people walk surrounding one of the most important highways of a western city. Day after day, in different seasons, observing, feeling in their bodies the morphology of the city and its composition which it is also their composition.
At the core of this approach lies the somatic laboratory, the instrument of research, discovery, learning and creation of PSAAP, that María Auxiliadora has been developing with cultural institutions, art centers and architecture or dance schools.
July 20, 21, 22 and 23
Workshop INTO THE WILD – A guide for bodies and the city they create, with María Auxiliadora Gálvez
The flux of data traversing our bodies is bigger than our awareness can process. Words are not the main way of communication once we are in the wild. Our bodies instead learn to react to the environment by becoming more aware of an ecology of the sensual paying attention to what is in contact with our skin.
Our systems of non-conscious cognition establish a continuous flow of exchanges and reactions with the environment and with our fellow cognizers like animals and plants. Somatic markers and processes can reveal an alternative body awareness and its associated body images able to change our perception but also the meaning we give to our experiences. The result is a reformulation of borders and of the definition of bodies and environments. Wilderness emerges in this workshop from a different perspective over our urban bodies, and these bodies build another city.
The workshop was divided in three stages developed in the Gardens of the Cristal Palace and their surroundings: Nocturnal Garden, Animal Body and (E)Merging Bodies.
In the context of this project, Maria Auxiliadora Gálvez also presented an artist talk on July 21st, at 7pm, in the gardens of Palácio.
In the context of this project, Maria Auxiliadora Gálvez also presented an artist talk on July 21st, at 7pm, in the gardens of Palácio.
October 12, 13, 14 and 15
How to look back, over, under and inside out - Fermentation workshop with Inês Neto dos Santos
This workshop seeked to reflect on the possible dimensions of an artistic practice deeply rooted in its surroundings, in this case the Gardens of Palácio de Cristal. What are the dynamics and experiences of beings and elements beyond ourselves? What happens when we collapse the cement walls that surround us, and slow down the pace? In what ways, by looking not only forward but also backwards, above, below and inside out, can we recover ancestral ecological relationships? What are the digestive possibilities of a place - and how does digestion bring us closer to it?
Through collective walks, observation exercises, performance, breathing, automatic writing and fermentation, we investigated and reflected on the empathic possibilities with our surroundings. Discarding the human superiority that characterises the Anthropocene, we rooted ourselves in the landscape that welcomes us, meeting its inherent abundance.
This workshop thus rejects capitalist thinking of scarcity – hierarchical, extractivist and linear – to adopt a symbiotic, horizontal and multi-species perspective in all directions.
As part of this workshop, the first day also included an artist talk by Asunción Molinos Gordos.
This workshop thus rejects capitalist thinking of scarcity – hierarchical, extractivist and linear – to adopt a symbiotic, horizontal and multi-species perspective in all directions.
As part of this workshop, the first day also included an artist talk by Asunción Molinos Gordos.
Thursday, October 12 at 7 pm
Artist talk: IN TRANSIT (Botany of A journey), by Asunción Molinos Gordo
Artist Asunción Molinos Gordo will share the ideas behind her project that crosses Art, Science and Ecology, consisting of a global garden grown from the seeds ingested by diverse culinaries, and which travel in the bodies of Dubai's diverse population.
Tomatoes, eggsplants and okra are some of the many foods we eat, the seeds of which are eaten without chewing. Given their characteristics, digestive enzymes cannot damage them, so they are expelled intact and can therefore be germinated. In collaboration with the local wastewater treatment plants, this possibility enables new futures that will contribute to the renewal of waste produced on a daily basis.
Tomatoes, eggsplants and okra are some of the many foods we eat, the seeds of which are eaten without chewing. Given their characteristics, digestive enzymes cannot damage them, so they are expelled intact and can therefore be germinated. In collaboration with the local wastewater treatment plants, this possibility enables new futures that will contribute to the renewal of waste produced on a daily basis.
Asunción will focus on this work which has been conceived as a ruderal garden - which ecologists define as the ability to thrive despite difficult conditions - reflecting on the ideas of globality, interconnectivity, mobility and cohabitation.
Saturday, October 21, at 3pm
INTO THE WILD: Closing session
Following on from the workshop INTO THE WILD - A guide for bodies and the city they create, conceived by María Auxiliadora Gálvez, the project is now presented in publication-guide format.
In the same way that the proposal sought to reflect the somatization of our bodies in the face of the various flows that surround us, this guide presents itself as a summary of the different experiences that resulted from it.
On Saturday, October 21, María Auxiliadora Gálvez and the participants will gather for a session open to the public in the gardens of the Palácio - the place where the four-day project began - to discuss and share some of the memories and present different ways for bodies to orient themselves in the landscape.
Friday, December 1, between 3 and 6pm
Workshop for schools: Resonances of a Garden, with Alexandra Rafael
From the collection of organic elements made by the artist in the gardens of Palácio de Cristal, we will create archives of textures and shapes, crossed with botanical illustrations from history and many years of study and observation.
And what about the location?
- There's no better place for this workshop than a space with different printing possibilities, such as Oficina Mescla. This space, run by various artists, has dedicated itself to different printing techniques: from the oldest to the most recent, here we will explore decals, frottages and various transfers; observation drawing techniques and many others, always with the material in hand: leaves, petals and some branches.
What Nature has given us will be used for a large "atlas-poster", made by several hands, generating reflections between images, shapes and stains; resonances of a garden imprinted forever.