On Tuesday, May 8th 2018, at 7 pm , at Spazio Cerere, Fondazione Pastificio Cerere and the Nando and Elsa Peretti Foundation present 170 RACCONTI IN BOTTIGLIA, a project conceived and curated by Paolo Marcolongo, who is a sculptor, a goldsmith master and a teacher at the Liceo artistico Modigliani in Padua. The exhibition takes place within the projectCurare l’Educazione? conceived by Marcello Smarrelli, Fondazione Pastificio Cerere’s artistic director.
170 bottles are exhibited. They contain miniature artworks, which have been realized by students from third grade of the art high school between 2011 and 2015, to tell Claudio Magris long journey through his masterpieces, Danubio.
Students have ideally walked through almost three thousand kilometers with extreme creativity, from the German springs of the river to the Black Sea outlet; they have reproduced inside 170 bottles 170 snapshots of journey that Magris described in his notebook.
Tiny landscapes of woods and houses, Lilliputian worlds inhabited by farmers and archdukes, merchants, poets and sextons, traces of the worst past stamped by the swastika and moments of cozy household life. A phantasmagorical, suggestive translation from words to images was carried out by the students with the most diverse techniques and put inside the bottles, the classical Bordeaux ones.
“Students discovered that Danubio not only tells simple past stories of small daily gestures, but it also puts them in contact with different cultures and overcomes every kind of barrier: political, social, religious. Our project does not focus only on the figurative workshop, but it embraces other subjects, such as letters, philosophy, history, architecture, and art history”. This is what Marcolongo claims.
The 170 micro installations in the bottles are charged with metaphorical meanings: messages to entrust water with, to travel across remote lands, hoping that destiny leads them to a welcoming landing. This is how the Danube told by Magris and proposed by Modigliani high school can convey a high ethical and educational message, particularly suitable to this great migrations epoch.
After Padua and Barcelona, the 170 bottles – set along a 60-meter path – will be exhibited from May 9th to May 29th 2018 at Spazio Cerere in a spectacular installation.
During the opening times educational workshops will be held for schools, within the project Curare l’educazione? in collaboration with the cultural association Informadarte.