A dimora
Art ResidencyThe first Art Residency of the Montagna Fiorentina
Londa and Rincine are the evocative setting for a three-year residency programme (2023-2025) for artists who will inhabit the mountains in a constant dialogue with the human and natural environment, enriching the cultural identity of the place with their works inspired by the forest as the source of life on the planet. During the residency, the artists will engage with the local community through public meetings and moments of mutual exchange.
"A dimora"
From temporary dwelling to ‘A Dimora’, the name of the Montagna Fiorentina arts residency, chosen to evoke both the link with nature and the transient nature of the participants’ artistic practices. The residency is co-financed by the European project Future DiverCities (Creative Europe), supported by the European Union-NextGenerationEU.
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2024 edition
“Che proveresti tu se ti fiorisse la terra sotto i piedi, all’improvviso?”
ARIANNA PACE
Iron, organic material, intaglio print in limited edition
Along the shores of the lake amidst the unruly vegetation, a garden appeared, or rather flourished. The baroque hissing of the old man’s beard, the demure rustling of the nettle and the baritone solos of the cuckoopint: these are the sleeping voices waiting to be invoked by the digging, cutting and weaving of the artist’s hand. The space has become a work of art, as can be sensed from an iron gate whose curves recall those of the branches and stems within it – establishing a threshold that remarks a before and an after, an inside and an outside that voluptuously allows the garden to unfold.
Arianna Pace has involved the local community in a dialogue through the practice of giving, seeking a common relationship with nature that can become a legacy in which they can recognise themselves in every season and change. To create a garden is to make an idea manifest: how to coexist with the wild, uncultivated, and unknown soil, how to be a gardener of two communities, plant and human—how to make ourselves bloom gracefully through the landscape?
50060
TOMMASO MANNUCCI (MONOGRAFF)
Quartz paint, ceramic and fabric
Workshops: Lissia Dinoia, Spazioterra
Ceramics: Alejandro Sorace, Terrenude
There is a passageway in the heart of Londa unlike any other: a spot covered by high, dark wooden ceilings with red bricks and stone arches that connect the riverside area to the main square. Here is the artwork by Tommaso Mannucci (Monograff). The distinctive feature, as well as the chromatic balance of blue with white, is telling about what is outside, just a few steps away: the river, the wild animals, the sun and the forest, totemic elements that speak of the village’s undivided relationship with the nature that surrounds it.
With dreamlike gestures, the artist restores another landscape, no longer geographical but intimate, inviting the observer to search within himself for the flowing of his own river, to savour the rays of the sun in his memory and to walk through his own forest with its fauna.
Thanks to the continuous exchange with the community, and in particular with its youngest members, 50060 is enriched with interventions, with colours and gestures that highlight the importance of collaboration and doing together, of which the work is only the destination point.
Se la luna venisse a nascondersi
ORNELLA CARDILLO
Steel, plexiglass, speaker, lamp
Production Assistant: Luciano Longobardi
Sound Engineer: Emanuele Pontecorvo
Ornella Cardillo’s sculpture stands out in the lake’s green, mirrored in its waters like a tutelary deity, a spirit guarding and protecting the place. The work holds within itself a sacred fire that, when night comes, becomes light, warmth, and storytelling, letting the voices of Londa and those who inhabit it fall from its steel profiles.
Songs, anecdotes and wishes are enclosed in a timeless beacon, capable of showing itself in the darkness of the night and revealing what is invisible to the eye. Inspired by the town’s ancient analogue lighting practices, the artist has created a sculptural element that has become a house of speech. And if the moon were to hide, in the gloom of uncertainty, in darkness without a destination – a light comes on in the twilight, inviting us to get closer and in the encounter, to get to know each other better.
2023 Edition
THE WORKS OF ART ON DISPLAY
“Fior di mezzogiorno…”
AGNESE BANTI
Sound installation for the Londa clock tower
Agnese Banti interprets our relationship with time: what we look at, where we put our ear, enveloping it in sounds intimately placed in the life of the village of Londa. The clock’s chiming in the Palazzo Comunale begins a larger story: a secular tower that speaks to its community, becoming a physical space and no longer just a symbol.
It is 13 o’clock – “fior di Genziana”, now 16 o’clock – “fior della Sieve”, then 20 o’clock – “for the hours Londa sold the sun”. The sound installation brings to light man’s poetics and history, interspersing words with the forgotten sound of old clock wheels.
The ‘stornelli’, composed and interpreted by the artist, spread through the village at the stroke of every hour, generating a time out of the ordinary to find oneself.
Pane per pane
LUCA BOFFI (ALBERONERO)
Breads, cotton cloths
Pane per pane (Bread for bread) is a performance born long before it happened. It is the meeting of neighbouring communities, those of Londa and Castagneto, united by the artist in his search for the ritual and the everyday. In making bread, the work takes on different forms, shaped by the sources from which the water is drawn, the choice of flours, the wild herbs and the many fingers that knead it, imprinting on it the customs and moods of the places.
After baking, the loaves are taken to the Bosco di Sant’Elena, where they are exchanged, donated and celebrated. It is now possible to taste them, feed on the stories of those who baked them, and celebrate their infinite peculiarities. Wrapped in white cotton cloths, the daily bread becomes a convivial gesture, a gift to the community.
Lingua di muschio e denti di sasso
SIMONE CARRARO
Quartz paint on stone
“Lingua di muschio e denti di sasso, dalla bocca del bosco irrompe la commedia dei simboli” (“Tongue of moss and teeth of stone, from the mouth of the forest, bursts the comedy of symbols”). Simone Carraro’s work reveals the inscrutable metamorphic processes of the landscape, drawing on inspirations gathered during his “bipedal reconnaissance”.
The decomposition of a tree trunk, the abandonment of cultivated land, and the evolution of micro-organisms in the water of a stream all appear in the artist’s paintings, transformed into new symbolisms in an ancient quarry.
Lingua di muschio e denti di sasso is a pictorial epic in which archaic symbols coexist with questions about future possibilities, forming a rocky backdrop. Part of the artist’s work is to transform the natural amphitheatre in which he is embedded into an artistic space where new and original productions can be created. The work is located along the Mezzadri path, in the hamlet of Caiano, near the CAI 207A path.
Sinfonia n.1 per voci e foresta
IACOPO SERI
Frottage, loudspeakers, voices
Sinfonia n.1 per voci e foresta (Symphony No.1 for Voices and Forest) is a tribute to the relationship that the town of Londa has with nature.
The work unfolded over time, starting with a solitary night walk to explore the forest and its sounds in detail, evolving into a collective performance under the full moon’s light on the first of August. That evening, orchestrated by the artist, participants discovered an archaic, ascetic language in which the abandonment of words allowed them to come together.
The experience lived in the heart of summer returns to the community with a symphony mixed with branches, stones, and voices resonating inside the local bar – a place of gathering, conviviality, and exchange. Meanwhile, the texture of the bark of Douglas firs, chestnuts, pines, and beeches becomes visible in the large rubbings that inhabit the town’s walls, marking its natural rhythm.
