A Sud Di Marte is an artistic residency plan realised in collaboration with Fondazione Elpis, which will take place in the spaces of KORA – Centro del Contemporaneo from April 2022 to February 2023.

Through a residency period of two months for each of the four invited artists – Bekhbaatar Enkhtur (Ulanbaataar, Mongolia, 1994), Agnese Spolverini (Viterbo, 1994), Martina Melilli (Padova, 1987), Matteo Pizzolante (Tricase, 1989) – the project addresses the vision of a South understood not only as a place rich in complexity, but also as an opportunity for the activation of an oblique gaze prompted by constant questions.

The title takes its inspiration from the red planet, an outpost that has always suggested in the collective imagination the vision of a remote place linked to the desire for exploration.

Even in its remoteness, Mars paradoxically advances as a possibility of discovery, representing the announcement of something that, while on the one hand has yet to be fully realised, on the other hand retains a strong utopian thrust for its ever nearer happening.

Following this track, the South is configured not only as an exotic place to land in, but also and above all as a possible push and encouragement to experimentation and utopian tension; a potentially limitless boundary capable of continually shifting and reforming itself, taking on ever different contours and forms.

A realisable utopia, says Yona Friedman, is only seemingly a contradiction in terms. Believing in a utopia and being a realist at the same time is not incompatible, “a utopia is, par excellence, realisable” on condition that the necessary collective consensus is obtained, because a utopia imposed by force is no longer one.

Sud as a space in which to practise a mobile and transitory orientation exercise, to take one’s gaze in unexpected directions. A place where apparent weaknesses can be transformed into strengths, overturning paradigms to design a new and radical imaginary.

The artists invited for A Sud di Marte are therefore called upon to make a journey to and in the South understood not only as a geographical place but as a working methodology.

The programme articulates the four residencies on a two-monthly basis and envisages as many returns that, depending on the proposed project, will take place in the spaces of KORA or in the public space of Castrignano dei Greci. Here the artists will live in direct contact with Palazzo de Gualtieriis and work on a context-specific project that will be exhibited at the end of the residency.

graphic project: Grazia Amelia Bellitta

photo: Alice Caracciolo