La Biennale dello Stretto 2024

The Biennale dello Stretto 2024
THE THREE WATER LINES
THE CITIES OF THE FUTURE

The second edition of La Biennale dello Stretto will be a cultural chapter marked by plurality and sharing.

It is worth focusing on these words that succinctly express its intentions.
Chapter because the Biennale, following the idea of its creator Alfonso Femia, is more than an event, it is a cultural dimension destined to learn, rather than to transfer and hypothesize visions and solutions.
Plurality and sharing, indispensable vehicles of contemporary thought and communication, in the Biennale translate into concrete choices, starting from the absolute choir of the project.

Choir Project:
La Biennale dello Stretto had an atypical start. A private investor, the benefit society 500x100, actively engaged in the construction of cultural projects, supported the investigation and valorization of the Mediterranean territory, through a research called Invisible Mediterraneans, conceived by architect Alfonso Femia, ongoing since 2018, developed in the area of the Strait of Messina. Over the years the project has grown, has taken on an unexpected multidisciplinary breadth that led to the Biennale dello Stretto in 2022. For the success achieved in terms of numbers, for the authority of the interventions, for the unveiling of an invisible place, Forte Batteria Siacci and for the international scope, without losing the uniqueness of the territory, in 2024 La Biennale dello Stretto will be promoted and supported, as well as by the historic founder 500x100sb and by OAPCC Reggio Calabria, by ANCE Reggio Calabria, by the Order of Architects of Messina, by the Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria, by the University of Messina, by the National Association for Industrial Design, Calabria and Sicily and by other public entities, administrations and institutions with which an advanced dialogue is underway. It has also obtained a significant endorsement from private companies.

Three directors, each with their own specificity, professional, academic and institutional, are working together, bringing ideas to the table to build an organic narrative of the Mediterranean territory that looks towards the future.

Two main themes, dense, one interlocking the other.
The first, "The three water lines" already addressed in the first edition and, contrary to the disposable nature of topics, confirmed for 2024.
The second "The cities of the future", declined for the pillars of Public Space, Urban Mobility and Infrastructure, Living and Care, School and Cultural Centers of the city, and oriented towards design and process innovation.

Nineteen curators, a plural intellectual community participating in the exploratory process triggered by the Biennale dello Stretto, pursuing the objective of acquiring and sharing awareness about the potential of the Mediterranean area, putting different elements, overlapping factors, even contrasting, into play in the context of a conceptually determined domain.

Architecture and Around: architecture is the cultural engine of the Biennale, understood not only as a simple professional practice, but as a key to the development and interpretation of the territory and the city. The Biennale dello Stretto creates connections between the three shores of the Mediterranean - African, Middle Eastern, and European - and pushes towards more distant geographical dimensions, in search of potential similarities and parallel stories - ranging from architecture to art, cinema, photography, literature, anthropology.

Multiple landscapes: Braudel spoke of the "Mediterranean world", attributing to the word "world" a composite, plural meaning. A world inhabited by different peoples, in harmony and opposition, constantly transforming. The Biennale dello Stretto moves away from Eurocentric logic, starting from the place, the extreme tip of Italy and its largest island, close to the African continent, from the choice to analyze the scenarios of the three shores, from the search for situations even very far away, with similar characteristics. Through the Biennale, architecture generates the humus to share the geographical, cultural, ethnic, political, and historical differences of the Mediterranean and for human exchange. In this edition, the directors have chosen the cross-cutting approach of crossing borders, expanding horizons through project, anthropological, figurative, cinematic, and narrative investigation.

Directors
Mariangela Cama, Alfonso Femia, Francesca Moraci

Curators for sessions
Arianna Azzellino, Luisa Bravo, Stefano Capolongo, Giulio De Carli, Gaetano
Di Gesu, Alessandra Ferrari, Luciano Galimberti, Marirosa Iannelli, Annalisa
Metta, Mauro Francesco Minervino, Luca Molinari, Giovanni Multari, Rosaria
Ester Musumeci, Orizzontale, Federico Parolotto, Angela Pellicanò, Gaia
Sgaramella, Francesco Scullica, Giuseppe Smorto.

THE THEMES OF THE BIENNALE DELLO STRETTO 2024
Local situations, new programs, the harshness of climatic conditions, which are increasingly tending to extremes, have a significant impact on the transformation of urban areas. Cities are a reflection of an increasingly multiethnic and therefore heterogeneous society in terms of behaviors, undergoing profound changes.
In this scenario, architecture has a huge task, having the potential to promote opportunities for aggregation vs segregation and to create scenarios for communities.

"The three water lines" and "The cities of the future" are in a reciprocal relationship crossed by a multiplicity of stories and projects, never singular and never alone: plural and achievable in creative and open spaces, according to a modality compatible with temporal cyclicity.

The projects exhibited at Forte Batteria Siacci, organized into sessions and curated separately, will be framed within these general lines.

IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS
The theme of the cities of the future, disaggregated into macro-functional areas, is declined in particular and specific situations, fundamental experiences for the understanding of the overall scenario. For this reason, the directors have organized specific in-depth analyses, involving a group of professionals: Francesco Garofalo, Maria Claudia Clemente, Francesco Isidori, Amleto Picerno Ceraso, Simone Sfriso, Chamss Arouise, Marco Introini, Mario Ferrara, Fabrizia Berlingieri, Francesco Messina, Luciano Marabello, Michelangelo Pugliese, Gaetano Scarcella, Salvatore Greco, Cristina Coscia, Marcelle Rabinowicz, Rémy Marciano, Consuelo Nava, Laura Pavia, Giuseppe Giordano, Orazio Carpenzano, Rosaria Musumeci, Luigi Alini, Gianfranco Tuzzolino, Carmelo Marabello.

THE EXHIBITION AT FORTE BATTERIA SIACCI
The exhibition of the projects - the result of the collection of contributions activated through the international Call to Action, personal invitations from the curators on the indicated themes, and Contests addressed to architects, designers, anthropologists, and artists under 35 - will be set up in Campo Calabro, at Forte Batteria Siacci. Following the excellent results obtained in the first edition, the mayor of Campo Calabro, Alessandro Rocco Repaci, has designated the Forte as a permanent exhibition center for the Biennale dello Stretto. Built together with the ring of Calabrian and Sicilian forts between 1894 and 1898, Forte Batteria Siacci is carved into the side of a hill to make it invisible from the sea. More than ten thousand square meters of covered area, over a hundred rooms, hundreds of meters of underground galleries, surrounded by an imposing moat, dominates the Strait of Messina without the gaze of those sailing by being able to catch a glimpse of it. This is the setting of the international exhibition, a space where the vernissage of the exhibition will take place and one of the places designated for debates.

UNDER 35 CONTESTS
Since the first edition, the directors of the Biennale dello Stretto have chosen to enhance the contribution of young generations of professionals.
This year on the theme "Living in another world. Nomadism and coming and going", the challenge is addressed, for the first time in the context of an architecture event, also to scholars of contemporary anthropology.
In the current historical moment of loss and complex and confused attempts to reclaim urban identity, the anthropological vision is a fundamental contribution to rethink the city, starting from the social, political, and cultural logics that fuel its transformation. The key point is to move from "political and project-making" to the right to the city, with a strategic reversal of perspective, considering different factors and aspirations.
The session dedicated to the Under 35 Anthropologists Contest is shared with the University of Messina.

TALKS
Some of the most authoritative voices in the international panorama will discuss not only architecture, cities, and landscapes, how they are and how we would like them to be, but also the necessary mediation between desire and reality, between vision and projection, moving away from the "ancestral" perimeters of the last century and from the inertia of a thought that is out of alignment with technological potential, especially intergenerational aspirations and behaviors.
Talks will be held in the cities of Reggio Calabria and Messina and in Campo Calabro
- at the National Archaeological Museum of Reggio Calabria, at the University of Messina, and at Forte Batteria Siacci - in three sessions from September 18 to 22, October 18 and 19, and December 13 and 14, with the presence of directors and curators and with the professional orders of Reggio Calabria and Messina and the involved entities.

SPECIAL PROJECTS
The Biennale becomes "spread out" according to a calendar in progress that sees the first stages in Badolato, Paris, and Palermo. The goal is to create a traveling panel discussion along the stages of a journey in Italy and beyond, to collect opinions and exchange information on the theme of shared design of the cities of the future.

“Lines and Bridges of Light” Light Installation
During one of the inaugural evenings, an artistic event "Lines and Bridges of Light" will be set up, a temporary projection of straight luminous rays.
An instantaneous conceptual line will connect Villa San Giovanni to Messina, tracing a boundary space to induce reflection on the complex and sometimes ambiguous relationship between union and separation, on the opposition between near and far, on polarization and tensions that animate contemporary living. This is an experimental installation for the length of the radius and the combination of light projectors that will be used.

Conceived by Alfonso Femia for the Biennale, it is realized in collaboration with Clay Paki, International Sound, and Audio Sales for the lighting project, together with Silvia Perego, light designer at In-visible Lab and the team of AF*Design coordinated by Enrico Martino.

Campo Calabro, Reggio Calabria, Messina
18 September - 14 December 2024
Web: biennaledellostretto.eu/