KORA: Home Sweet Home
KORA Contemporary Arts Center presents Home Sweet Home, an exhibition reflecting on the theme of the house, understood not only as a place to live but also as a part of life.
KORA Contemporary Arts Center presents Home Sweet Home, an exhibition reflecting on the theme of the house, understood not only as a place to live but also as a part of life; a place in which relationships are born and develop over time. With more than thirty projects and artists from around the world presented in a close and constantly evolving dialogue, the space created is one of encounter, chance and change.
Recently opened at Palazzo de Gualtieris in Castrignano de ‘Greci (Puglia, Lecce), KORA is a place of production and research with 1600sqm dedicated to temporary and permanent exhibitions, workshops and training. This multidisciplinary space promotes an innovative vision of arts and culture that draws on its surrounding community. Random, one of KORA’s funding associations, has always promoted hospitality, debate, research, and cultural production for artists, curators, researchers and enthusiasts. Its initial incarnation as ‘Lastation’, the house of the former stationmaster of the last functioning train station in Italy’s southeast, and the subsequent departure is the basis for KORA and its last artist in residence to formulate this exhibition. Gianni D’Urso has created a work entitled Home Sweet Home, which is at once a farewell to the house left behind and a bitter reflection on youth migration.
The exhibition explores and reflects on the idea of what the home has become today as a place of both intimacy and work; a place of hybridised tasks and hospitality. It is no longer necessarily simply a place of rest or retreat. It also serves as an expression of a new institutional function, one defined by discontinuity rather than in historical continuity. It requires a new imaginary and language. Home Sweet Home intends to be a proposal, a hypothesis, the expression of a cross-generational, cross-media, and multidisciplinary working methodology which, on the basis of different formats, modular and in constant dialogue with each other, gradually aspires to become a way of feeling and thinking the artistic creation. These spaces are promoters of projects for the recovery and the re-reading of the places and territories they inhabit; they are an expression of inclusiveness and in many cases they are located in inland and rural areas of Central-Southern Italy, in the Mediterranean basin and Atlantic shore.
The exhibition features works by Andrea Anastasio, Yu Araki, Elena Bellantoni, Carlos Casas, Casa a Mare, Cristian Chironi, DAAR (Decolonizing Architecture Art Research), Gianni D’Urso, Formafantasma, Fernanda, Fragateiro, Ishu Han, Eva Hide, Alfredo Jaar, KairUrs, Leticia Lampert, Tatiana Macedo, Elena Mazzi, Neri & Hu, Liliana Ovalle, Parasite 2.0, Jacopo Rinaldi, Sissi, Emilio Vavarella, and Zimmerfrei. Constructed as an agora – a dialectic space – the innovative and ambitious exhibition setup revolves around a specific device designed by Jessica Gastaldo. It is created to change over time with the integration of new artists or projects, thus becoming a real platform for creation and thought.
Home Sweet Home is on display at KORA, and has no closing date.
Images courtesy of KORA.
Articles you also might like
Kalpa Galleries presents a selection of British artist Eleanor Lakelin’s contemporary wood sculptures in dialogue with key historic vessels from the Etruscan Museum of Volterra through September 15, 2024.
The 3rd edition of the Mayrit Biennale opens its doors to the public on May 22nd, with exhibitions and events taking place across Madrid through May 26th, 2024.
The Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris pays tribute to fashion designer Iris van Herpen with Sculpting the Senses, an extensive exhibition featuring over 100 haute couture pieces. The exhibition is on view now through April 28, 2024.
The earthy hues of terracotta, the textures of pine needles or ancient mosaic floors are inspirations for Milan-based designer and creative, Marialaura Irvine. She recently presented a new tapestry, Oplontis, with Spazio Nobile Gallery.