Urban mining

This year, the National Visual Arts Prize City of Gallarate reaches its XXV edition. To mark this momentous occasion, a project has been initiated with the Museo MA*GA, a working hypothesis that puts artistic production and local identity in close dialogue.

The book Urban Mining / Rigenerazioni Urbane, brings together the results of this process, the works of the chosen artists were conceived and take inspiration from the local area in a constant exchange with the urban area and, particularly, with the Arno river. It is this ability to re-read the places and re-define the meanings that come with the idea of urban generation, a process that is not entirely physical, as much as it is cultural in how it stimulates the resemantization of the city’s spaces.

The artists therefore worked on interventions that engage with different contexts: from the on-site film productions by Marzia Migliora and Luca Trevisani, and installations in public spaces (Ludovica Carbotta and Luca Bertolo), to works with a clear relational vocation (Ettore Favini and Cesare Pietroiusti), and those that revitalize specific cultural contexts, such as Christiane Löhr and Luca Francesconi who work in the historic Museo della Società degli Studi Patri, or A12, who completely transform the Gallarate local tourist office into an unlikely gift shop.