Westopia

58° Premio Internazionale Bugatti Segantini, Villa Vertua Masolo, from 23rd September to 8th October 2017, Nova Milanese, Italy.

“Westopia” is a project curated by Parasite 2.0. It focuses on the theme of the utopia, selected by the Bugatti-Segantini Prize for the 2017 edition, after Thomas More coined the word more than 500 years ago. For the occasion, Italian and international researchers, artists, and architects were invited to question the topic starting from what was, and still is, the role of the Western influence on the evolution of the word. Can we imagine a de-colonization of this word and, in turn, of the design practices? In particular, each guest realized, as result of his/her reflection, a flag. The flag, in the same way of the utopia, represents a concept firstly created by the Western culture: the idea to collect the variety of the human being under a symbol, thus representing its ideology and vision of the life, is itself an utopia. In history, the alternation of different flags, thus of what they represented, tells us both of communities compelled to accept those symbols through a forced imposition, and of collectivities that affirmed and recognized themselves through those flags. An installation, and exhibition of the flags produced by the participants, and a series of essays try to develop a critic and collective reflection of the theme.

 

Participants: After Belonging Agency, Adjustment Agency, Mattia Balsamini e Laura Doardo, Nicola Baratto e Yiannis Mouravas, Sofia Pia Belenky and Hunter Doyle, Bollerìa Industrial, Bruna Canepa, Colleen Tuite, Robert Crabtree, Alessio D’Ellena, First Office, Hutte, Martti Kalliala, Zves Kostantinos, Giuseppe Licari, MAIO, PEAKS, Plasticity, Vassiliki Maria Plavou, Federico Pompei, Softbaroque, Hala Tawil, Davide Trabucco, TrikkBoi, Nicci Yin.

 

Performative installation by Iacopo Costanzo and Max Perego.

Essays by Parasite 2.0 and Marco Petroni.

The project is part of the 58° Premio Internazionale Bugatti Segantini.

Ph. Francesco Stelitano and Antonio Buonsante

"Tales of the other space into the non-existent space"_Iacopo Costanzo and Max Perego.
"Tales of the other space into the non-existent space"_Iacopo Costanzo and Max Perego.
"Tales of the other space into the non-existent space"_Iacopo Costanzo and Max Perego.
"Tales of the other space into the non-existent space"_Iacopo Costanzo and Max Perego.