Thinking Like a Mountain is a widespread cultural program that, for the two-year period 2024-2025, will involve not only the museum itself, but also the territory of the Province of Bergamo, from the pre-Alpine areas to the towns of the Bergamo valleys, to the urban parks of the provincial capital and the surrounding municipalities.
The aim of the project is to create an itinerary of shared artistic experiences in order to reflect on issues of sustainability and community, as well as to give way to a debate on the role of art institutions in the local context, in light of the forthcoming opening of the museum’s new venue.
Thinking like a Mountain is an expression coined by American ecologist and environmentalist Aldo Leopold in his book A Sand County Almanac, published posthumously in 1949, comprised of a collection of reflections on nature, arising from his observation of the lands around his home in Sauk County, rural Wisconsin.
The artists Marta Cuscunà, Gabriel Chaile, Yesmine Ben Khelil and Agostino Iacurci together with the communities of Casnigo, Vertova and Bergamo were the protagonists of the opening of the new cycle of Thinking Like a Mountain, including theatre performances, installations, video works and a special Bread Baking Party.
On Thursday 3 October, Casnigo’s Art Nouveau theatre hosted the performance Alleanze multispecie. Fantascienza, femminismi e creature più-che-umane by Marta Cuscunà, which took the audience on an imaginative journey that condensed reflections on the future of planet Earth and explored the interconnections between species and environments, highlighting the relationships between natural forces and human actions.
On Saturday 5 October, the GAMeC staff accompanied the public on a tour between Bergamo and Vertova: the tour began in the museum, with a viewing of the video work En Ausencia by Caterina Erica Shanta for the 16th edition of Artists’ Film International and the group exhibition Works from “The Marmot Parliament”.
This was followed by a visit to the Botanical Garden in Città Alta, to admire the pictorial installation Rien ne pourra nous separer / Niente ci potrà separare by Yesmine Ben Khelil in the winter garden and the light installation Dry Days, Tropical Nights by Agostino Iacurci in the Polveriera Superiore.
Lastly, the Circolo degli anziani in Vertova was enlivened by a special Bread Baking Party with the activation of the work-oven by artist Gabriel Chaile, in the context of an evening dedicated to sharing and recovering traditions.
AGOSTINO IACURCI
Bergamo, Lorenzo Rota Botanical Garden / Polveriera Superiore
Dry Days, Tropical Nights
Site-specific installation
6 October 2024 – 19 January 2025
The practice of Agostino Iacurci (Foggia, 1986) crosses painting, sculpture and drawing: different media that the artist integrates and articulates in layered installations, works with synthetic and polychrome forms, and immersive environments in which heterogeneous elements and fragments of reality enter into relation.
The artist’s attention, increasingly focused on environments and the management of space in relation to exhibition staging, on this occasion encounters the volumes of the Polveriera Superiore, late 16th-century war architecture with a rigorous form, now part of the Botanical Garden of Bergamo. The installation is a site-specific adaptation of the project Dry Days, Tropical Nights presented in 2023 at the historic tower in Largo Treves in Milan. Consisting of several luminous sculptural elements, the work – produced by glo™ for art – is a reflection on the landscape and its constant transformation over time.
The installation is accompanied by a sound intervention specially designed by Uruguayan DJ and producer Lechuga Zafiro, whose musical experimentation fuses the exploratory essence of club culture with the poetics of sound design, expressing the nuances of Latin American musical culture.
At the end of the exhibition period, the installation will become part of GAMeC’s heritage thanks to the artist’s donation.