Thursday, November 5, 2015

Foreword_


Jorge Conde's A World-Size House project reflects upon the institutional model and the paradigms that nowadays prevail in Italy's contemporary culture, primarily focusing on the Lazio region and the city of Rome. Through various artistic means and different techniques and technologies, the artist wonders about the sustainability of the cultural utopia set forth by this model, the validity of its original objectives in a context of severe crisis (or early post-crisis period), and whether it has been successful in building deep, fruitful bonds with society.

To do so, Jorge Conde explores obsolete, disused urban spaces that in the past two decades have been transformed into cultural facilities or cutting-edge spaces for the arts, aiming at discovering each venue's history, mission, resources, and identifying the most significant challenges they'll be facing in the near future.


The transformation of disused spaces is a fairly effective strategy widely-used by the private and public sectors in many countries and territories not only to promote creation, speed up the cultural scene and articulate society, but also to stimulate growth, economic speculation and reactivate declining urban areas. This strategy, included in a more ambitious renovatio urbis, undoubtedly establishes new paradigms and introduces a clear notion of cultural utopia.

Needless to say that whilst some of these transformations have succeeded, some others have faced great difficulties being therefore forced to reinvent themselves or adapt their action to a worsened context with decreasing resources. In addition, there are cases which could be regarded as truly disappointing, a complete failure or projects that, due to various reasons (i.e. budget cuts, political disputes, poor management, change of priorities, etc.), still remain unfinished.

It is thus crucial to evaluate to what extent these transformations serve the purpose of getting people involved in the city’s cultural scene, or in delivering a higher quality cultural outcome. It is also worth analyzing whether this strategy only works well in the good times and in “healthy”, growing economies. From this perspective, crisis can be approached as an opportunity to rethink the role of cultural institutions, the concepts of social impact, creation and education, along with some utopia-generating mechanisms. Can this model survive and remain faithful to its essence?

| Una casa del tamaño del mundo | A World-Size House | Una casa grande come il mondo |

CREDITS_
As part of the institution's Artist Residency Program (ARP), A World-Size House will be created during the season October 2015-June 2016 at the Reale Accademia di Spagna in Rome (Italy), where it will be presented and exhibited in 2016.

This project is being created, developed and produced with a MAEC-AECID Visual Arts Grant, awarded in 2015 by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and Development.


| Una casa del tamaño del mundo | A World-Size House | Una casa grande come il mondo |