UNIDEE research residency | Fall 2017

Residency programmes for international artists at Cittadellarte have been conceived with the aim to educate (through modules, lectures, experts’ studio visits, meetings, etc) and to produce (from exhibitions to talks to final publications) cultural projects related to a responsible social transformation. The residencies are developed in collaboration with institutional partners, such as RESÒ – International Network for Art Residencies and Educational Programs (Piedmont, Italy) and A.M. QATTAN Foundation (Palestine), Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation (India).

FALL 2017

From September to November 2017 the artists Noor Abed and Vanessa Sandoval have been living and working in Cittadellarte – Fondazione Pistoletto (Biella) thanks to A.M. QATTAN Foundation (Palestine) and RESÒ – International Network for Art Residencies and Educational Programs (CRT Fondazione per l'Arte, Piedmont), attending UNIDEE - University of Ideas weekly modules, creating and producing their artworks. They were asked to deal with the main topics of the 2017 UNIDEE programme: Revolution, Desire and Mediation.
The residencies were conceived and designed according to UNIDEE’s methodology, which combines practice with theory, through workshops, seminars and a series of meetings, studio visits and trips tailored to the interests of each artist. They presented their research on the 22nd November 2017. The residents are assisted in the research and production of artworks by the UNIDEE team (Cecilia Guida, Clara Tosetti and Annalisa Zegna) and by Art Office (Juan Esteban Sandoval).

OPEN STUDIOS  |  NOOR ABED and VANESSA SANDOVAL
ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE at UNIDEE - University of Ideas
Wednesday, 22 November 2017, 5.30 pm
at Cittadellarte - Fondazione Pistoletto
in partnership with
A.M. QATTAN Foundation (Palestine) and
RESÒ – International Network for Art Residencies and Educational Programs (CRT Fondazione per l'Arte, Piedmont, Italy)

Noor Abed (1988, Jerusalem) has been selected for a two-month residency at Cittadellarte – Fondazione Pistoletto within the UNIDEE – University of Ideas programme, in collaboration with A.M. QATTAN Foundation (Palestine).
Noor Abed is a visual artist working at the intersection of performance, video and film. Specifically, she is focusing on an intermediate space between performance-stage and screen-image. Abed holds a MFA in Photography and Media from California Institute of the Arts (Los Angeles), and a BA from the International Academy of Arts (Palestine).
During the residency at Cittadellarte, she has focused on expanding her research on the concept of recurrence - of an event, and therefore an image that occurs again.  Since our correlation with time and space is an illusionary construction based on intense experiences, then these experiences have the capability of escalating the coordinates of other events.
For the Open Studio, Abed presented the performative action “A West Bank”.  The action consisted in crossing the river beside the studio, from one side to another, through a time experience of a similar crossing of the Jordan river. The Jordan River, which is the only entry point for Palestinians entering/ exiting Palestine, is highly controlled and has its own operation hours. The action proposes crossing the river near the studio using the approximate duration of crossing the Jordan River - 5 hours. 
www.qattanfoundation.org

Vanessa Sandoval (1990, Cali, Colombia) has been selected for a two-month residency at Cittadellarte – Fondazione Pistoletto within the UNIDEE – University of Ideas programme, as part of RESÒ – International Network for Art Residencies and Educational Programs in collaboration with Lugar a Dudas (Cali, Colombia).
Vanessa Sandoval is a Colombian artist, living and working in Cali. She is interested in finding relations between people and the landscape or context they inhabit, trying to discover the tensions generated by this relation. She usually uses the walking as an action that enables the thinking.
Since the beginning of the residency at Cittadellarte, she has been focusing her attention on the signs about houses “for sale” which she found everywhere around Biella. Through the presence of empty houses and buildings for sale, she has investigated the economic crisis and the migratory situation. Her project “NON LASCIARMI” consisted in performing symbolic actions around the city, to prevent someone’s departure.
“My project has two phases. The first part consists in an announcement to spread through the local newspapers and through flyers around the city. In this announcement, I ask for advice to prevent someone’s departure. I designed it in a quite ambiguous mood, so that one might think that it could refer to a love relationship. In the second part, I collect all the advice that I receive, and I perform them in front of some empty houses, as a vain attempt to avoid the departure. As final presentation of this research, during the Open Studio, I show the printed announcements, photos and videos documenting the actions in front of the abandoned houses.”
(Vanessa Sandoval)
http://reso-network.net