SARA CONFORTI

“Neroblaum fustaneorum. Memories"

Collective project site-specific:

Teleri, installation site-specific, photographs and works on fabric

Hall of the "Door of Textiles", 22 October - 5 November 2022

The exhibition itinerary of this project, curated by Sara Conforti, opens with seven embroidered panels, installed on the external facade of the Porta del Tessile in a way that recalls scenes such as those painted by Vittore Carpaccio. I am "Neroblaum fustaneorum. Teleri di memoria», I work site-specific by Sara CONFORTI made with Denim or Jeans fabric which inevitably refers to their forerunner from Chieri, whose “black-blue” variants dyed with “good gualdo” are described in medieval Latin Statutes of the Fustian Art. We continue with the large interactive installation, Centosettantaperottanta - What comes first? , an exploration space dedicated to the female universe, an archive of shared clothing reminiscences, through the drafting of experiential notebooks, a collective work that gave life to the artist's notebook donated to the Moleskine Foundation Collection and exhibited in February at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris and in May at the One World Observatory at One World Trade Center in New York. The artist's notebook will be exceptionally exhibited at the Textile Museum, for the first time in Italy, thanks to the loan from the Moleskine Foundation Collection. The exhibition is completed by a series of photographs and special textile works in BCI cotton and Denim created thanks to the collaboration with Thecolorsoup and Berto Industria Tessile.

«With this event - comments the President, Melanie Zefferino - Chieri welcomes to its Museum a leading figure on the international art scene, capable of combining creativity and rigor in a multifaceted approach that binds art and activism in a double thread to imagine, weave or knot weaves of memories, emotions, life. Sara Conforti thus restores existential value to the universe of textiles, suggesting new "warp sections" for a tomorrow still to be re-woven».

THE EXHIBITION

In the installation site-specific created by Sara Conforti for the Porta del Tessile, the fabric is interpreted as a "connective tissue" and a surface of proximity within a space in which past and present intersect. The structure of the moleskin, a tri-twill (2:1), looks like this leitmotif and a metaphor for an art of relationship played on the value of the intertwining of threads as feelings (sensations, sentiments), "passing and transversal" that intersect the private plot and the collective history through an investigation between dress and habitus.

On the seven Teleri installed on the external facade of the Porta del Tessile, panels with inserts in Denim fabric, stand out embroidered anagrams. These are autobiographical fragments that start from some keywords extrapolated from a writing by the artist dedicated to the memory of his own pair of blue jeans. The large stitched surfaces were created as part of a series of workshops in collaboration with the participants in the Lalàgeatelier - Devices Vestimentari project in its new headquarters in the Le Vallette district of Turin in collaboration with the residents of the district, the users of the Fragole Celesti Community - Double female diagnosis for the treatment of abuse, violence and mistreatment by Fermata d'Autobus Onlus, and Cooperative project tent Onlus. The participants were involved by the artist in the conception and embroidery of personal compositions, each one inspired by the 7 special keywords. The display of the seven teleri will thus also allow the public to experience the game of composition.

Memory and intertwining, relationships and textures are also the protagonists of the internal exhibition through a large interactive installation by Sara Conforti, Centosettantaperottanta - What comes first? , inspired by the theme of the Moleskine Foundation's AtWork 2022 itinerant educational format and created during the Covid 19 pandemic emergency. It is a special edition of the itinerant artistic research path One hundred and seventy to eighty through which, since 2011, Sara Conforti has identified an exploration space dedicated to the female universe. The public and private value of the memory and experience of clothing objects thus encounters the possibility of revealing itself through a participatory taxonomic practice. The research digs into the wardrobes to try to share answers in which the participants' clothes become the protagonists of "affective" autopsies, the fulcrum of a journey of the Self in relation to the group, a tool to encourage the birth of new collective narratives. By integrating the question “What comes first?” of the Moleskine Foundation's Atwork educational format, Sara Conforti hybridises the usual practice gender oriented between dress and habitus of the art project One hundred and seventy to eighty and proposes the construction of an archive of shared clothing reminiscences, through the editing of Moleskine notebooks, created by each of the participants, together with the creation of personalized embroidery. The meetings dedicated to this artistic research began with the users of Fragole Celesti, a dual diagnosis community for the treatment of abuse, violence and mistreatment. 10 workshops were held both remotely and in presence involving 70 participants along the peninsula from December 2020 to July 2021.

The collective work gave life to an artist's notebook created by Sara Conforti and donated to the Moleskine Foundation collection and recently exhibited at the World Trade Center in New York and at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris as part of the collective exhibition "Detour 2.0 of the Moleskine Foundation Collection". In 2021, Centosettantaperottanta - What comes first? was set up at the Gliacrobati Art Gallery in Turin-VI International Festival of Outsider Art and Irregular Art, Palazzo Barolo, Turin, at the XIII Florence Biennale, where the artist was Guest of Honor awarded the Lorenzo il Magnifico Prize of the President for his career for his commitment to fragile women. More recently, the installation animated the Spagnuolo gallery in Palazzo Lascaris, seat of the Regional Council of Piedmont, as part of the exhibition “Sono Altro. I'm elsewhere."

Here, the method of using the installation consists of a curious participatory formula that refers to the Books of Fortune, very popular in the Renaissance. The public, asking themselves the question What comes first? will be able to interact with the works of the participants in the workshops, extracting a number from a set of small encrypted stones which in turn coincides with that of a notebook and one of the embroideries bound in the book, which are in turn numbered and made available to the public. By reading them, the public will be able to come into empathic contact with the story and the memoirs written by the anonymous compiler of the work, casually called upon to answer the initial question.

They complete the collective project site-specific a series of photographs and special works on fabric combined with prints on BCI cotton canvas, with water-free pigment methodology thanks to the collaboration. The Denim fabric used was donated by the Berto Industria Tessile company and made in compliance with environmental and social sustainability criteria at all stages of the production chain.

THE ARTIST

Sarah Conforti was born in Turin in 1973. Guest of Honor at the XIII Florence Biennale 2021 he receives the Lorenzo il Magnifico Lifetime Achievement Award for his profuse commitment to fragile women. Her practice explores the complexities of the social and gender fabric alongside social, political and environmental issues. Author of performative projects, artistic research and social sculpture which have as their focus the dress which, from object-symbol of our voracious consumer society, becomes subject-pivot capable of stimulating deep reflections around individual and collective identity thanks to the reactivation of the reminiscence process.

Since 2011 she has conducted her investigation through the Centosettantaperottanta project which identifies an exploration space dedicated to the female universe where the public and private value of memory and experience meets the possibility of revealing itself. Since 2013 she has been the author of the performative project 13600HZ Concert for sewing machines, an action that the artist builds around the sound of sewing machines. A choral work where the research between dress and habitus flows into the performative act.

Founder of Hòferlab Associazione Culturale, Sara Conforti is currently artistic director and project coordinator of

urban regeneration: Circular Reflections. Sew up the territory. Between dress and habitus . Vallette district. Project funded by the City of Turin - Vallette 2030; Compagnia di San Paolo Foundation - Turin Proxima - Co-financed by the Health Textile Association and District 5 Turin. A unique project in Italy also for the number of actors and recipients involved - see hoferlab.org/riflessioni-circolari.html .