The second installment of La terra nostra è un mostro di mare closes the third chapter of the artistic programming of KORA-Contemporary Arts Center on the theme of inhabiting. The exhibition, curated by Claudio Zecchi and Paolo Mele, aims to investigate a complex and evergreen topic, the Mediterranean, trying to explore it from different points of view. 

The themes of home and village acted over the last two years as a narrative device to wonder about the institutional dimension of a cultural center, committed to research  art and contemporary culture (Home Sweet Home – Exploring the living spaces, 2021-22), and to ponder over a conscious choice of a marginal position that acts as a privileged viewpoint and a cultural production tool, focusing on the notions of center and suburb (Paint your own Village, 2022-23). In this exhibition, the Mediterranean, intended as land and sea at the same time, a place of contrasts and contradictions, is proposed in the exhibition as a possible unit of measurement for a paradigm shift. Following this concept, all those peculiarities that may seem apparently unproductive and useless acquire value and broaden our imagination. Slowness, magic, folklore, superstition and tradition are therefore not a caricature of the world but become, or could become, lenses and tools of interpretation through which the experience we have of them can become richer, broader and plural. Voices, therefore, equally important, capable of pointing us to the unforeseen, unproductive, often non-programmable destinations, full of contradictions at the same time.  

The artwork of Riccardo Giacconi and Carolina Valencia Caicedo, Scarcagnuli, whose incipit gives the exhibition its title, constantly shifts through the narration of personal stories intertwined with local tradition, folklore and rituals, the relationship between reality and fiction starting from a strong connection to the territory in which it was created – Capo di Leuca. The work not only expands the spatio-temporal boundaries, but calls into play the specificity of a geographical positioning that, as the fishermen of Leuca say, is both a beginning and an end, but also a place of landing and transition in the heart of the Mediterranean. Following this direction, the exhibition aims to question the relationship between land and sea, to reflect on how these two elements find a common ground or cause of tension at the same time, and on how, finally, the images produced by this relationship create an ever-changing and often indefinable landscape. A plan, capable of opening up to new horizons, offering itself to be interpreted and accessed by multiple suggestions and intuitions rather than obligatory paths. In this sense, the Mediterranean becomes a depository of possibilities and openness, a platform where terms like loss of control, fragility, mistakes, and things that remain in the shadow or left behind can become further alternatives of the human experience. If the first installment attempted to build a geography of infidelity, a mapping in which the presence of the territory, the place of origin and its roots is strongly felt, following an optimistic impulse, with the second installment, a shift in meaning can be traced, the migratory phenomena created by the current political and social models are often the result of failure and not of social redemption. The exhibition structure is circular again showing the coasts of Salento with two artworks, Scarcagnuli and Parade for the Landscape, which intertwine tradition, mythology and landscape.

Scarcagnuli by Giacconi and Caicedo functions again as the opening artwork of the exhibition and at the same time marks the perimeter, the geographical and cultural frame within which we move: Leuca, the end and the beginning of Italy at the same time but also a port in the heart of the Mediterranean. A sound portrait that investigates the concept of extreme through a succession of personal stories that intertwine with the tradition and folklore of the place thus becoming universal.

The artworks of Coclite, Hall and Imaginary Holidays suit within the perimeters addressing Salento’s political and social issues that could, at the same time, become the manifestation of many other territories.

In fact, both artworks analyze the transformation of the landscape, of the political and social changes in Salento and use the architecture of the summer colonies as lens of observation. Through these two artworks the artist explores some phenomena that have marked the province of Lecce in recent decades characterized by deindustrialisation and the decline of rural activities which led to the transition from industrial production to the predominance of the tourism sector, highlighting its limits and critical issues.

Seeds/ Si Siz by Ciancimino is a mapping of the plants that grow on the coasts (the seeds of the plants contain the memory of the plant species that change to naturalize on the rocks and sandy soils where they land). A map that takes new forms from time to time depending on the places that host it, thus drawing ever-changing routes; a jungle of instinctive signs that visually refers to the artist’s cultural origins influenced by Arab-Norman architectural decoration and Art Nouveau.

A visual vocabulary that suggests possibilities.

En Route to the South – Parallel migrations by Mazzi and Sorbello is an installation exploring the practice of nomadic beekeeping as it relates to the phenomenon of human migration. During a residency in Gagliano del Capo in 2018, the two artists focused on the condition of the beekeeping in the Capo di Leuca, forced to replace the traditional permanent farming method with that of nomadism due to economic, political and environmental choices, which compromised the biodiversity of the territory.

Flu水o by Alessandro Sciarroni stems from the need to put into perspective with the stories of our day with a specific and significant moment in the history of art – the pre-Fluxus period in Japan. “Flu水o”’s main subject is water in its full poetic power, which can be at the same time a place of death and annihilation, and the heart of pressing social, political and anthropological issues.

The exhibition closes with Parade for the Landscape by Andreco. The Parade for the Landscape project is a collective public artwork that starts from an investigation into the territory of Capo di Leuca, and manifests itself in a parade along the coast. The parade crossed the entire gulf of Leuca, symbolically uniting Punta Ristola and Punto Meliso at sunset finding solution to the dilemma of the ancient legend of the mermaid Leucasia, who divided the two lovers Aristula and Melisso out of jealousy. Also inspired by the work of the geographer Élisée Reclus, the parade is a reflection on the “Finis Terrae” of Italy and on the geographical and geological characteristics of this “extreme” territory. It aims to reevaluate some aspects and perceptions linked to the boundaries of the landscape. The areas on which this public artwork focuses are those of transition between the terrestrial and marine landscapes, the cliffs. Parade for the Landscape is also a reflection on the meanings of natural boundary and political border. The artwork gave rise to a cycle of Parades which are still part of Andreco’s artistic practice today and will be presented in the form of video installation in the exhibition.