ELETTRA BOTTAZZI
In Residence:
November – December 24, 2022
Discipline:
Curator/Art Historian/Researcher
Country:
Italy
About
Elettra Bottazzi is an Italian curator, art historian, researcher, archivist. She is the co-founder and artistic director of Amaneï, a non-profit organization and cultural center based in Salina (Aeolian Islands, Italy) that promotes and supports artists’ work and research through artist-in-residence and international exchange residency programs. She curates exhibition for emerging artists where her curatorial practice reflects on themes such as memory and identity, within their construction and deconstruction processes, through an interdisciplinary approach of anthropology, history, archival methodology, and linguistic studies concerning human feelings in the visible and invisible worlds. For several years, she participated in Robert Wilson’s International Program at The Watermill Center (USA) as a performer or artist coordinator. Until 2019, Elettra has been curator and archivist of established artist Giosetta Fioroni, for whom, she curated her retrospective at Museo del Novecento (Milan, 2018). Moreover, she collaborated for historical displays in Capitolini Museum and Quirinale, and worldwide as an artistic production coordinator with artists and filmmakers, including Peter Greenaway, Jan Fabre and Robert Wilson in various museums and international fairs (Louvre, New York Armory, Prada Foundation, and Venice Biennale).
WORK
FRANGIPANI
The Traveling Flower. Islands to Islands
On 19th December, the artworks of Elia900 and Niccolò Masini will activate Yayasan Bali Purnati’s grounds and spaces. This showcase is the result and restitution of their research and investigation during “Frangipani/The traveling flower. Islands to Islands”, a long-term Residency Exchange Program between Indonesia and Italy.
This bilateral initiative facilitates the synergy between multidisciplinary artists interested in cross-cultural interactions. It promotes on-site theoretical and practical research of two artists+one curator from Italy in Indonesia (2022) and two artists+one curator from Indonesia in Italy (2023). The program, directed by Elettra Bottazzi and Restu Kusumaningrum, is hosted and supported by their cultural centers: Amaneï (Salina, Aeolian Islands, Sicily) and Yayasan Bali Purnati and Losari Foundation (Bali and Central Java, Indonesia).
Under the support of the IIC Jakarta (Italian Cultural Institute), the 19th December event will showcase the developments of the project and the end of the first exchange cycle involving the Italian participant artists Elia900 and Niccolò Masini and the curator Elettra Bottazzi. Through the explorations of local stories and traditions, the artworks underline the main aspects of their transdisciplinary learning and process-based experimentations. The multilayered creation of meanings and minglings are the effects of the encounter between environments and cultures, suggesting instead a dialogue made of similarities and crossbreeding.
In 2024, the outcome of both residencies will manifest in a group show, which will gather the artists’ and curators’ research and works. The exhibition will unfold the collected experiences into a plurality of voices and gazes, revealing the curators’ and artists’ ability to match different poetics and backgrounds, questioning “from which point of view we see” since our gaze is never neutral but often cultural.
“Frangipani/The traveling flowers”’ project aims to engage the involved participants in diverse environments and traditions, fostering exchanges and dialogues between landscapes and cultures. The islands of Java/Bali and Aeolian Islands/Sicily are far apart, but in these volcanic territories, the Frangipani flower blooms abundantly. The artists and their works, which have always traveled the world, are like seeds that flourish even in the most remote places, reminding us that culture, like nature, knows no boundaries.
