Monday to Friday, from the 6th to the 24th November 2023, 10am-5pm
Irish Architectural Archive – 45 Merrion Square East
Free entry
The Italian Institute of Culture in Dublin is delighted to present the Street Art photographic exhibition “Vedo a Colori: Greetings from the harbour”, curated by Giulio Vesprini and Cristina Ciampaglione, from November 6th to November 24th.
The exhibition will be held at the Irish Architectural Archive – 45 Merrion Square East, D2 – and will showcase the urban regeneration project Giulio Vesprini led as the Artistic Director of Vedo a Colori in the city of Civitanova Marche (Italy).
Over the past decade, this initiative has revitalised the harbour through street art. The exhibition will feature 120 photographs showcasing the artistic creations of Italian street artists, thoughtfully captured by five distinguished photographers from 2014 to 2022 – Massimo Perugini, Silvia Diomedi, Monica Capretti, Federica Borroni, and Simone Fabbri.
The opening event on November 6th will be enriched by the screening of the documentary film ‘A Documentary at the Port’ at the Italian Institute of Culture – 11 Fitzwilliam Square East, D2, followed by the vernissage of the photo exhibition at the neighbouring premises of the Irish Architectural Archive.
The exhibition will be open for public viewing at the Irish Architectural Archive every Monday to Friday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with complimentary admission for all art enthusiasts.
Presentation of the “Vedo a Colori” project by Giulio Vesprini, Artistic Director & Founder
Street Art and its many creative forms arrive with ‘Vedo a Colori’ in an urban recovery project through its most classic and, at the same time, decisive pictorial intervention: the mural.
These paintings are joyful and colourful contamination of grey environments, destined for flat forms without identity. Brushes and rollers bathed in vibrant tempera have as their sole purpose the beautification of some port sites and are more present in the city of Civitanova Marche.
The rehabilitation of these complex architectures throughout the Civitanovese port area is a clear example of how urban art reaches into everyday life and the working social sphere.
The textures of the drawings and the graphic concepts expressed thus become a second skin of the walls; the colour, freezing the existing industrial plaster and without altering its shape, positions the same walls in a new light. In a space as articulated as the port, the volumes acquire a patina that is undoubtedly a tangible sign of the man-artist. It becomes a historical memory, a true heritage for the city.
With ‘Vedo a Colori’ the harbour becomes an authentic Museum of Urban Art and is fenced with colour, becomes a space usable by all and changes the city’s postcard starting from its heart.
“Vedo a Colori – A philisophical reflexion” by Cristina Ciampaglione, Arts Professional
Street art is a cultural and artistic movement that raises profound questions about the relationship between art, public space and contemporary – constantly evolving – urban life. Can it really bring places back to life? Can it return derelict public spaces to civil society-restoring them as collective goods where a sense of belonging and dialogue create new meaning? The answer is yes.
Street art acts as a bridge that activates social change within an increasingly apathetic, aphonic and grey society, proposing an alternative vision/perception of our daily world. Street art can provoke an awakening of awareness and can fundamentally be considered a catalyst for transformative social change on many levels.
It is much more than simply beautifying the surrounding environment, though. In Civitanova Marche, with Vedo a Colori (but not only), it affected people’s perceptions of the daily spaces they live or work in – with the harbour’s workers – and spread out to the entire city – where In 14 years, it affected urban planning and played a decisive role in revising the concept of urban decorum.
But returning to the ‘eloquent case of the shipyards’, starting from there, street art has transformed these places, communicating through the use of a different language: art that speaks not only to artists but also to workers, young people, and the entire Civitanova community. In this way, street art in Civitanova Marche has become a vessel of expression for a wide range of individuals, offering them common ground to build new forms of dialogue and renewing a proud sense of belonging to the city and its port.
But street art does not stop there. It also acts as a bridge between the natural world – the sea – and the social world – the harbour, awakening new sensibilities & understandings and raising awareness among citizens. Inciting reflection, activism and action, promoting active participation and triggering dynamics tending to the transformation of the civil society.
Finally, street art with Vedo a Colori reaches out to young people, offering creative alternatives to the street, inviting them to express themselves constructively, serving as a pathfinder to find an alternative way through art and transform their lives into something meaningful and inspiring.
In conclusion, street art is much more than “art from the street.” It is a philosophy that prompts us to reflect on the nature of our public spaces; it is a call to rediscover meaning in the places around us and consider art’s transformative power.
