Fatti e finzioni della venusta isola di San Servolo

Exhibition of works produced during the second edition
of artLAB_San Servolo artist residency
Commissaire: Irene Calderoni

Michael C.Eddy
Amy Elisabeth Gadsby
Erik Göngrich
Jorge Mendez Blake
Sara Nuytemans
Delphine Rigaud
Lidia Sanvito
Charles Stankievech
Dilek Winchester

On Saturday October 7th at 17.00 the exhibition of young artists, participants of the second edition of artLAB, the residency programme promoted by the Province of Venice and by San Servolo Servizi, will open on the island of San Servolo , Venice. Nine artists from around the world spent the month of August on the island, invited to produce a work conceived specifically for this place. The exhibition, curated by Irene Calderoni , presents the work of Michael Eddy (Canada), Amy Elizabeth Gadsby (Australia), Erik Göngrich (Germany), Jorge Mendez Blake (Mexico), Sara Nuytemans (Belgium), Delphine Rigaud (France), Lidia Sanvito (Italy), Charles Stankievech (Canada) and Dilek Winchester (Turkey). These young artists were selected through an international open call in which 500 applications arrived from around the world. On the island, the participants of the residency lived an intense experience of exchange, both between themselves and the hosting grounds, and then returned their impressions and instigations through their personal imaginations. The aim of the initiative, which with this second edition follows and enriches last year's positive experience, was to generate a platform for contemporary creation.
“What is important about this initiative - asserts Luigino Busatto , President of San Servolo Servizi – is the possibility offered to young artists to live the city, to produce a work of art in Venice and to share an important lived artistic and human experience. Thus, Venice becomes a place of art production rather than solely a place of art exhibition. This project brings us closer to contemporary art and to young people: the island of San Servolo wishes to be just this, a place of study, of confrontation, of experimentation. Each year artLAB will grow and propose – with permanence – the nature of the residency. As occurred last year, San Servolo Servizi will then consider – in order to support the young artists – the possible purchase of some of the works.”
Underlining a fundamental feature of the dynamics of residencies – the encounter between the artist and the site of the work – this year artLAB's theme is the island itself, examined by the artists in all its aspects, from history to geography, from its rich past to its developing present, dynamic and rich in offerings. The title of the exhibition, Facts and Fictions , makes reference to the artistic process at the base of these works, an analysis of the actual characteristics of the place, from which the artists start from in order to arrive at the creation of possible and alternative worlds. The island, the topos of fantasy par excellence, becomes the context of the production and exhibition of works which play on the ever-seductive border between the real and the imaginary.

Sculpture, sound installation, drawing, video and photography are some the many expressive tools used by the artists to tell their own particular version of reality, or to deconstruct the one that has been accepted. The exhibition unfolds in various areas of the island. It asks the visitors to follow a path, across a place which they may already know, but which is temporarily transformed by the artistic interventions.
artLAB_San Servolo artist residency is a programme promoted by the Province of Venice and San Servolo Servizi in collaboration with Querini Stampalia Foundation, Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation , Abate Zanetti Glass School , Faculty of Arts and Design of the IUAV University in Venice, Venice Academy of Fine Arts and Venice International University.

source: www.sanservolo.provincia.venezia.it