“Saluzzo Rural Happening”, curated by Rebecca De Marchi for the Istituto Garuzzo per le Arti Visive (IGAV), ran from 2018 to 2022 in two editions.

The first edition was held from September to November 2018, featuring weekly workshops conducted by the griot Moussa Sanou, with the harpist Vanja Contu and the accordionist Davide Casalis. They were aimed at encouraging the meeting of local and seasonal inhabitants through the encounter of music, both African and European, to create a community of intention through practice and process. During the workshop, participants created handmade proto-musical instruments using recycled materials and objects. The activities had their final acts in a musical happening (November 2018), and with the screening of the video “Chi balla più veloce della musica balla fuori tempo” (Who dances faster than music, dances overtime) produced in that frame, that can be defined as a visual sinfonia, directed by Irene Dionisio (May 2019).

The project “In Erranza” by artists Luigi Coppola and Marzia Migliora, developed for the second edition, took shape through an artist residency (articulated in three stages, in July and November 2019 and the last one in March 2022 with the mediation of Cooperativa Nemo), the visit of sites and the encounters that took place in the various stages. For the artists, the travelling residency was a moment of verification and emergence of an initial perception of the territory stretching from Saluzzo to the Valleys, from which the river plain derives, and of the movements it witnesses. The long and imperceptible geological time is flanked by the movement of people, as well as plant and animal species, in modern times and the recent imposition of an illusory suspension dictated by the measures implemented to contain the Covid-19 pandemic. The work is formalised in a map that observes the context, starting from the agro-industry in the Saluzzo plain, and collects, sketches, and relaunches the imaginary of ecosystem practices that inhabit the territory of the Varaita and Po Valleys in a circular path of ascent from the plain to the mountains. The map, featuring data and artistic imagery, will restore the richness of this territory, from the plains to the mountains, and invite people to get to know it.
The artists’ experience was shared in June 2022 as part of the Partisan Festival organised by the Ecomuseo della Resistenza Il Codirosso di Rossana, suggesting the possibilities of cognitive and affective wandering in this landscape.

For the realisation of the map, the artists availed themselves of the graphic and cartographic support of the Lungomare studio, Bolzano. link

In November 2019, the workshop “Metamorfosi vegetali” (Vegetable Metamorphosis) was held at the Parco d’Arte Vivente, which resulted from the first edition of “Saluzzo Rural Happening”. Conceived as a place for the intercultural exchange of myths, narratives and testimonies, with the help of a plot and the mediation of Irene Dionisio and Rebecca De Marchi, through circular orality were created collages evoking the stories collected during the dialogue.