Fabbrica dell’Arte. The Art Factory
Recovery project at the banks of the Metauro river, Urbania-Casteldurante (Italy)
2007
The Project
The project has as its purpose the recovery of the places and banks of the Metauro river that surround the historic city of Urbania-Casteldurante (Marche / Italy) and the reuse for contemporary activities:
preservation of the character of the place (genius loci)
environmental and landscape requalification of a marginal river area of the historic city (river environment of the Metauro river, historical agricultural landscape)
a new design of open spaces through the experience of vegetable gardens
conservation of the traditions and knowledge of the earth through the experiences of the different generations involved
creation of art installations as the first nucleus of an open-air museum called "The Art Factory”
creation of a sensory path between the natural environments of the Metauro river, the recovered traditional agricultural landscape and the artistic installations
organize courses, meetings, seminars where tradition and contemporaneity can become common experiences
Center for meetings and artistic activities
The old dyeing factory, now renovated, becomes the central place of the entire project, serving as a meeting, exchange and hospitality point for artists, a documentation center and creative space for seminars, workshops and courses. Starting from the interior spaces of the Fabbrica dell’Arte, a material and immaterial path will be articulated.
The Fabbrica dell’Arte project combines artistic interventions and landscape architecture in a play of surfaces and volumes, of open and closed shapes, with the use of different materials, natural or chemical, contained in the earth (water, earth, stone, minerals, wood, iron, etc.).
The itinerary of the Fabbrica dell’Arte is a "rediscovered" historical path where contemporary man not only comes into contact with nature, but becomes the element of conjunction, of integration between nature, contemporary culture and society. The path, between nature and artifice, leads the visitor to encounter the universal dimensions of "space and time" – a public space transformed thanks to the artistic language that moves freely between aesthetic, poetic and ethical expressions.
Five Elements
Ground installation by Angela Mrositzki
Five tanks in stainless steel, laminated glass, water and antifreeze, earth,
air, ash / coal, gasbeton and ultramarine blue pigment
Earth, air, water, fire. The four elements, cosmic essence of every natural evolutionary process, rich in symbolic values and concepts, are the raw material of my artistic work – as a source of inspiration, as a coporeal substance and mindset. EARTH – to touch. The Mother Earth, which lays the solid foundations and allows every living being to take root. AIR – state of lightness. In which nothing weighs and the matter is an ephemeral fickle veil. In the air we leave the earth, we go up to the sky, carried by the eternal breath of the wind. WATER – primordial stream. Source of all life forms linked to the creation of the world. In the same river we enter and we do not enter, we are and we are not (Heraclitus). FIRE – the flame that has a life of its own. It burns. Warm up. Illuminate. Always leaving a trace of himself.
The FITHT ELEMENT contains the enigma of eternal creation, the alchemical-imaginary-spiritual element of every state of transformation and metamorphosis of the same artistic work, as happened in this work proposed for the Fabbrica dell`Arte with a passage from the expressive language of painting to the more conceptual one of installation. Always, however, in close contact with the progress of nature in its magical becoming.
