From the Suburbs, Florence (2023)

5 T-shirts (XL, L, M, S, XS) and 5 posters (42 × 59,4 cm) with reproductions of images and audio work (via QR code) for San'azione art project by ilPrisma in collaboration with Angelika Stepken, public space, Le Piagge, Florence, Italy

Voice: Marion Sherwood, translation: Katarina Atkinson, Annamaria Bianchi

Artist Haure Madjid, fellow at Villa Romana in Florence, Italy, invited me to an open studio event in the fall of 2022. I met the painter Sebastiano Benegiamo in Le Piagge, a suburb of Florence built in the 1980s, where he initiated the project IlPrisma together with his friend Emiliano Anselmo. In spring 2023, I participated in the group exhibition San’azione by IlPrisma in collaboration with curator Angelika Stepken.

On posters and T-shirts visitors could see images of different high-rise buildings and scan a QR code to hear an audio work: A young voice speaks a manifesto-like text and asks visitors to reconsider the past and change the present for a different future.

My contribution was part of the collaborative project Parrots and Swans, which I initiated in 2020 in Ratingen-West, near Düsseldorf, Germany. Ratingen-West is a typical European large housing estate. I grew up there in the 1970s and 1980s. Together with artist friends, I came back and we reflected on living together.

Le Piagge is also a typical European large housing estate. It looks familiar to me. I feel the clash between architectural utopias and living conditions today. I feel the vulnerability and the possibilities of micro changes.

On Sunday 7 May 2023, I invited visitors to take a walk to see the posters, to listen to a young voice and to talk about our expectations for living together in the future. They were invited to wear one of the T-shirts to become an active part of the art work.

from-the-suburbs.mp3

Poster: Anne Schülke, photos: Lara Cervaroli, Alberto Gori. Disclaimer This work was produced with the financial assistance of the European Union. The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Union.