February 2024

Collective Archive of our bodies in nature — Unpae x EKA Stand-In School for Graphic Design

August 2 — 5 2023

Unpae Summer Residency (Ed. 5) for Performers

This edition of Unpae was characterized by performative actions and construction of symbolic and emotionally charged objects such as the wooden nose and the village key. Symbolic elements lead to the discovery of connections between beings. The key is an object born in the middle of the village that activates and changes with the energy of several people and atmospheric elements. The blower in Guillhelme's poem is a being that through the sigh of lavender creates invisible connections between things.

Guilhem Prat (@yemgi) is an artist and graphic designer who works alone or with others, with the central idea of reading and giving to read, of listening or making others listen, to no longer necessarily think in terms of productions (visual, textual, sound) but rather to look towards how these circulate, communicate and exist in our contemporary environment. Member of the publishing and radio project At the Same Time, his work attempts to imagine other poetic and relational narratives, revolving around the gesture of publishing, installations, printed objects and performances.

Marco-Augusto Basso (@millepiani) is an artist and researcher. Sculptor, he now focuses on music composition as a performative act. He was involved in the seventh edition of the 'Resistere e Creare' festival of the Teatro della Tosse in Genoa, in which he concluded the cycle of performances 'Moyocoyatzin' inspired by the current of Post-exoticism.

November 25 — 26 2023

Unpae at SPRINT (11th ed.) — Independent Publishers & Artists' Books Salon 2023, Milan

October 14 — 16 2022

Angelo Licciardello x Unpae

ArtVerona 17

The project was developed by Unpae in collaboration with Angelo Licciardello for the LAB section of ArtVerona, curated by Giulia Floris. For the first time, the artist was not hosted in the spaces of the residency. In the environment of the exhibition, we worked on the construction of a narrative bordering on the fantastic, a familiar and alienating atmosphere that we tried to recreate can be experienced in the mountain village or in the domestic environment.

For several months we shared thoughts and ideas about the childish and affective imagination in relation to the figure of the animal. The wild animal is apparently no longer present in our lives. In its various representations, it is reduced to a "polished symbol" (John Berger - Why look at animals?) and thus infantilized. From this point of view the bear can be associated with Pinocchio: it is part of our childhood, we find it on bedroom dressers and in family photos with us children. In the space coexist childish symbols, animals and objects that often lose their function.

The display is given by the image of the mountain souvenir shop, a place in which live worn-out and images that look all the same, which preserve a rudimentary and spontaneous aesthetic. Angelo decided to hide among the installation elements, phrases from a poem particularly dear to him written by the poet Nikki Giovanni. Particular to the poem is the surreal imagery (the author identifies herself as a motionless, soggy mushroom), an atypical element in her social struggle-oriented career. The calendar becomes a display for a portrait of a dog sleeping in his bed, in the first days of January. Sleep can be read in the elements of the bed and fleece blanket, objects that stand between relaxation and death.

September 2022

Gabriele Zagaglia

With the contributions of Unpae's residents

Le stelle cadenti diventano cardi e i desideri si svegliano tardi

The editorial project was created in collaboration with Gabriele Zagaglia. The idea is to recount the five years of residency through the memory of the artists and researchers who participated over the years. We believe that affective remembrance is a central element of Unpae, a feeling that transforms, the contours of the image blur and create different sensations with the passage of time. We asked residents for a spontaneous contribution that took on new forms and went on to make up the poster. The name takes up a nursery rhyme invented during the 2021 edition of the residency.

Contributions by Sara Ravelli, Jacopo Belloni, Alice Pilusi, Marco de Leonibus, Alberto Rota, Alessandro Gabini, Stefania Carlotti, Andrea de Liberato, Giorgia Garzilli, Lorenzo Kamerlengo, Chiara Druda, Lorena Florio, Francesco Alberico, Matei Vladimir Colțeanu