The artistic residence of the winners of the competition QUANTE ITALIE?, which was promoted by Artissima and Torino Social Impact, started on September 1st and ended on Septemeber 30th. 

Last May, the Torino Social Impact Art Award – The prize conceived by Artissima and Torino Social Impact and addressed to emerging talents with a multicultural and migratory background – announced the two winners of the call for artistic residence: Caterina Erica Shanta (Germany, 1986) and Liryc Dela Cruz (Philippines, 1992).

The two young talents selected had the opportunity to be in residence in Torino for one month to produce a new video work that involves reflections on the theme of “How Many Italies?”, the title and focus of this first edition of the Torino Social Impact Art Award.

“How many Italies?” invites the young winners to contribute to the transformation of social perceptions on particularly urgent issues, examining life stories considered “distant” to investigate themes such as identity and cooperation, relying on their own multicultural background and personal, faceted and innovative viewpoints, through constant and productive interaction with the context and stimuli of the city of Torino.

The selection of the artists took place through the publication of a call sent to the leading Italian Fine Arts Academies and Universities and digitally distributed. The call received submissions from 22 artists: video artists, photographers, painters and performers, ranging in age from 22 to 35 years, with a slight majority of women (thirteen) and foreigners (twelve). The existence of a multicultural and migratory background in the artist’s life story was a fundamental requirement of the call, interpreted by the candidates in close relation to family history, and in relation to professional and educational experiences. Living for a long period of time in contact with other cultures, and having assimilated their characteristics, many of the candidates feel like “citizens of the world” and see their research as the result of migratory experience. Artists of many different origins responded to the call, with roots in Southeast Asia, Eastern and Western Europe, Central America, South America, the Middle East and the Far East. All the candidates have demonstrated a strong interest in the creation of collaborative works based on dialogue with the inhabitants of Torino.

The two winners have been selected by a committee composed of Ilaria Bonacossa, director of Artissima, Mario Calderini, professor at Politecnico di Milano and spokesperson of Torino Social Impact, Antonio Damasco, director of Rete Italiana di Cultura Popolare, Danilo Correale, artist, and Anna Daneri, curator.

During the residency – initially scheduled for the month of May and postponed to September due to the health emergency – the artists stayed at Combo, the hospitality partner of the project and an innovative format that combines the idea of lodging with artistic and cultural programming open to experimentation. The daily interaction with the heterogeneous community that inhabits and frequents the spaces of Combo, as well as the synergic proximity to Porta Palazzo – the largest market in Europe – which lends its name to the historically multi-ethnic neighborhood that is Combo’s location, permitted the artists in residence to constantly absorb new stimuli and inspirations.

Stimuli were enhanced by the visits organized by Artissima and Torino Social Impact to accompany the artists in the discovery of the city and its most significant artistic, cultural, and social expressions. Artissima also guided the artists in the development of their works, with specific processes of tutoring.

The shared focus on experimentation has led Artissima and Torino Social Impact to formulate the project with the aim of widening the boundaries of action of social innovation to contemporary art. Concentrating on the space of multiculturalism in today’s society, the initiative proposed new relationships and opened unexpected scenarios through the languages and gazes of the winning artists.

THE WINNERS

Caterina Erica Shanta won the Torino Social Impact Art Award with the project: Talking about visibility, for the following reasons:

“For the social impact of her proposal, based on horizontal dialogue and exchange of viewpoints. For the desire to question and focus on the imaginary of cinema of each of us, with the aim of giving rise to a project of collective cinema, involving several multi-ethnic communities of Torino and producing a work capable of conveying stories and narratives that shift from the personal to the social dimension.”

Born to an Italian mother and an American father, Caterina Erica Shanta has lived in various countries and been in contact with a range of different communities. Like other works recently made by the artist, Talking about visibility is a place of construction of identity, otherness and memory that places the accent on the act of recognition of self in a given imaginary, and on the visibility of that imaginary inside a common narrative.

Liryc Dela Cruz, a filmmaker from the Philippines, won the Torino Social Impact Art Award with the project Il Mio Filippino: Invisible Bodies, Neglected Movements, for the following reasons:

“For the force of social investigation proposed, focusing on the documentation of the collective movement of migration, its perception, the forgotten labour force and social rejection. For the intention to put a silent, subterranean world at the centre of the research, inhabited by people who remain unobserved or overlooked, but who play a fundamental role in our society.”

As in other works thematically linked to his roots and history, the Filipino community of Torino will be the protagonist of the research. The artist, concentrating on the everyday life of domestic workers, sets out to produce a video with choreographic elements.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES ON THE ARTISTS

Caterina Erica Shanta

Born in Germany in 1986, Caterina Erica Shanta is an artist and director who develops documentary film projects with a particular focus on media systems for the production and archiving of images.

With a degree in Visual Arts from IUAV University of Venice, her works have been shown at various film festivals and in contemporary art exhibitions. She has worked in the field of education for several years, conducting workshops for children and adults.

Her works have been presented in art spaces and film events, including: Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze (FI); Progetto Borca, Borca di Cadore (BL); PAV Parco Arte Vivente (TO); Lago Film Festival, (TV); MAMbo, Bologna (BO); Fabbrica del Vapore, Milano (MI).

Liryc Dela Cruz

Born in the Philippines in 1992, Liryc Dela Cruz took a degree in Mass Communication at the University of Davao (PH). He moved to Italy in 2017, and lived for six months in Torino, then moving to Rome where he presently lives and works.

His works have been selected and screened in international film festivals and art exhibitions. Among his various honours and events, we can mention: representation of Italy at Young Artist UK in Nottingham; Editor-in-Chief of the exhibition “Where is South” at Palazzo Querini, Fondazione Ugo e Olga Levi in the context of the initiative “Rothko in Lampedusa” during the 58th Venice Biennale; he collaborated with the Festival del Cinema Mediterraneo in Rome as coordinator of Progetto Methexis (2019). Recently he was selected as one of the emerging young filmmakers to represent Italy in the section of the Berlinale Talents festival during the 70th Berlinale International Film Festival. He will also take part in the INFRA project from 2020 to 2021 for Teatro di Roma.