The Sonic Diary. Conversation between artist Rossella Biscotti, musician Attila Faravelli and Barbara Casavecchia

On Saturday, September 2 at 6:30pm, Ocean Space will host a conversation between artist Rossella Biscotti, musician Attila Faravelli and curator Barbara Casavecchia, accompanied by a listening session. The participants will delve together into the themes and contents of The Journey's Sonic Diary, an acoustic archive created for The Current III - Mediterraneans on the Ocean Archive platform, as a corollary of the broader long-term project The Journey, which Biscotti has been developing since 2011.

After receiving a large 20-tonne block of white marble from the famous Michelangelo Quarry in Carrara as a prize, the artist began to conceive of a journey that would allow its release at a symbolic point in the Mediterranean Sea. Following a long preliminary mapping and research phase involving scientists, activists, fishermen and researchers, in 2021 the block was extracted from the Apuane mountains and travelled to Malta to embark on the ship Diligence. The GPS-based route was plotted in order to highlight specific points of interest outlined by Biscotti, such as the intersection between the free movement of a sea turtle studied by biologists, the nautical boundaries delimiting oil concessions and the invisible patrol lines of the European Border Agency FRONTEX, or the geological fault line of the Sicilian Channel, where Africa and Eurasia continue to collide. Attila Faravelli followed the artist over the course of time, constructing with her a sonic narrative that should be understood not so much as documentation, but as an expansion of the listening dimension.

To the initial ten tracks of Sonic Diary, Biscotti recently added four new contributions, related to her research along the shores of Tunisia in preparation for her participation in Dream City Festival Tunis in 2022, comprising sounds, songs, and voices of musicians, fishermen and activists, including Khayreddine Debaya of the Stop Pollution Gabes movement and Chemseddine Marzoug, founder of the Cemetery of the Unknowns in Zarzis.

Rossella Biscotti's work deals with the exploration of forgotten or untraced events that reveal changing value systems. She is interested in manifesting a subject's constitution through its alliances and resistances against violent institutionalized structures - sensibly weaving together traces of lives, concepts and materials into new narratives. By gathering information through the recording of oral stories, as from archival research and fieldwork, her work is often a montage of various materials and formats, compositions of sculptures, video, performance and sound. Places, which have been tapped historically by forms of mining, exploitation, and confinement, are often the backdrop of her artistic explorations. By questioning the relevance of the information used from a contemporary perspective, she is interested in increasing links and networks to the present, empowering imagination and experience.

Biscotti graduated from the Accademia di Belle Arti in Naples in 2002 and attended the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam in 2010-2011. She has taken part at major international exhibitions, including the 55th Venice Biennale (2013); the 13th Istanbul Biennale (2013); Documenta 13, Kassel (2012), and Manifesta 9, Genk (2012).

Her work has been presented in solo exhibitions at Mor Charpentier gallery (2022); Kunstinstitut Melly, Rotterdam (2019); Fondazione Ratti, Como (2019); daadgalerie, Berlin (2019); Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel (2018); Protocinema Istanbul (2018); GULAG History State Museum, Moscow (2016); Museion Bolzano (2015); Haus Lange Haus Esters, Krefeld (2014); WIELS, Brussels (2014); Sculpture Center, New York (2014); Secession, Vienna (2013); e-flux, New York (2013) and CAC Vilnius (2012). Additionally, her works have been exhibited at institutions and international events such as Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels (2022-2021); Beaufort Triennale (2021); the 15th Bienal de Cuenca (2021); Dhaka Art Summit (2020); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2018, 2019); Kunstmuseum St Gallen (2018); IVAM, Valencia (2018); Contour Biennale, Mechelen (2017); MAXXI, Rome (2010, 2017, 2021); Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2016); the Swiss Institute New York (2016); IMMA Dublin (2015); ICA London (2014); Pinchuk Art Center, Kiev (2014); Castello di Rivoli (2012) and Museu Serralves, Porto (2010).

Biscotti has received several art awards and her work is present in numerous international public collections.

Attila Faravelli is an Italian sound artist and electro-acoustic musician. Within his practice - which encompasses field recording, performances, workshops and design - he explores the material involvement with the world around us. His work has been featured in various festivals and institutions internationally. He has collaborated with, among others, Armin Linke, Rossella Biscotti, Riccardo Giacconi, Kamal Aljafari, Gürcan Keltek, Teatro Valdoca and Mariangela Gualtieri. He is part of the sound research collective Standards in Milan. He is founder and curator for the Aural Tools project, a series of simple objects to document the material and conceptual processes of specific musicians’ sound production practice.

Part of the cycle “Waves of Words”, encompassing conversations with artists, researchers, and writers interweaving poetry, science, and situated ecology in collaboration with local institutions and national initiatives. Spoken words will become waves to drift with and carry our thoughts, while we consider climate and cultural change with diverse voices from the Mediterranean shores.