Il mondo del futuro

Good morning, and welcome to Artissima! You are listening to tour number 2, The World of the Future. You’re about to explore a contemporary art fair by following a route designed especially for you by Elena Patrignani. I can imagine you might be feeling a little lost already. You’ve just stepped into a huge space, full of bright lights and little open booths filled with strange, colourful objects. There are desks, people chatting, and visitors wandering around, looking at things... Where on earth have you ended up?! A little while ago, we mentioned that this is a ‘contemporary art fair’. An art fair is a huge space where art galleries from all over the world come together for a few days to exhibit and sell artworks to art lovers and collectors. There are dozens of galleries, hundreds of artists, thousands of artworks, and lots of collectors looking for their next purchase! All the artworks here are contemporary, which means they were created recently. Some are very recent indeed — perhaps made just a few days ago, especially for Artissima. Even though these artworks were created in the present, they’ll take us on a journey through time, into a future that we can imagine for ourselves. Are you ready? Then build your own time machine, start the engine, and decide how far into the future you want to travel... In the meantime, grab the fair map and look for the Les filles du calvaire gallery, number 4 in the Drawings section, along the white corridor. I’ll meet you there. I’ll be waiting!

Here we are at our first stop: the Les filles du calvaire gallery from Paris. But… this doesn’t look like a gallery at all. It looks like… a forest! Let’s step inside the booth and forget where we are for a moment. Let’s forget the noise, the artificial lights, and all the people walking around and chatting. It almost feels as if we’ve stepped into a dream, surrounded by these soft, delicate colours. The artist who created this magical world is called Makiko Furuichi. She’s Japanese, but she’s been living in France for a long time. She painted these delicate watercolours, which you can see hanging on the walls, filled with plants and flowers. But the nature she painted didn’t stop at the edges of the paper. It kept growing, spreading across the walls. The branches intertwined, the leaves grew bigger and bigger, and a little garden was born. Perhaps this vegetation is still growing, so slowly that we can’t even notice it… What if it never stopped? Maybe it would take over the neighbouring booths, climb over the artworks, reach the ceiling and fill this whole building like a gigantic greenhouse! Perhaps one of its roots would manage to creep under the doors, allowing this delicate yet courageous nature to spread outside, too: into the car park, along the streets… throughout the whole city! Now try closing your eyes and listening to the sounds of this little forest as it grows. Can you hear the leaves rustling, the gentle crackling, a soft buzzing...? What do these flowers smell like? Can you hear any animals? Is this a warm, humid tropical rainforest, or a cool, shady woodland? Now slowly open your eyes again and see if you can spot any unusual creatures hiding among the plants… Can you find any? To create her watercolours and this lush, flourishing universe, Makiko drew inspiration from ancient Japanese mythology, which tells of spirits known as yōkai. These spirits live in forests and on mountains. They are strange and mischievous, but they also protect nature. They are the ones who blow the wind and create the mist. Who knows? Perhaps, in the future, nature will spread again and really start growing along our streets and inside our homes. Makiko has brought back myths passed down from the past, but perhaps, just as in a dream, she has also caught a glimpse of what the plant life of the future might look like. What do you imagine it will be like? Tropical rainforests or fir forests? Giant trees or tiny, slender plants? Deserts or glaciers? Bold, intense colours, or delicate shades like Makiko’s? And what kinds of spirits might inhabit this new natural world? As you imagine the vegetation of the future, make your way to the Present Future section, number 5, along the black corridor, to the Management gallery. Pause the audio and press play again when you arrive.

You’ve arrived at the Management gallery from New York, which is showing the works by Mary-Audrey Ramirez, an artist based in Berlin, Germany. But what has she created here for us? Have we stumbled into a mysterious future, millions of miles away from our own time? I have to admit, this place is rather unsettling: if Makiko’s gallery felt like stepping into a dream, here it feels as though we’ve ended up in a nightmare. But be brave and come a little closer! I promise nothing will happen to you… as long as you’re careful not to touch anything! We can see some strange creatures here, beings that look like giant insects or parasites. Perhaps they have just emerged from the ground beneath our feet, or maybe they’re about to burrow back into it. What is the natural habitat of these creatures? What do they feed on? But most importantly, when do they live? 500 years from now? 2,000 years from now? Three million years into the future? Could they be the descendants of animals that exist today? What has made them grow so big and develop such strange shapes? Luckily, the creatures you’re looking at aren’t real. They’re sculptures made by Mary-Audrey herself. They’re black and glossy, with shimmering, iridescent reflections. But what are they made of? Stone? Hard, rigid plastic? Well, neither! They’re soft sculptures! It’s as if the artist had created strange stuffed toys without any fur. But these aren’t cuddly teddy bears or fluffy little puppies. They’re dark, frightening creatures instead! Mary-Audrey Ramirez is a big fan of video games, fantasy and digital worlds. Inspired by all these things, she decided to do something rather unusual: she took the monsters, creatures and fantastical landscapes we usually see only on a screen and turn them into real, soft objects that we can encounter in the real world! And so, although they’re a little scary, they also make us want to play! I promise that the next stop will be nothing like this one. In fact, it’s quite the opposite! Look for the Banda Municipal gallery, number 14 along the red corridor.

Here we are at the third stop on our tour. You’re now at a gallery from Mexico, showcasing the work of an artist named Antonio Gritón. But what kind of artworks did he create? Take a good look around: you’ll see enormous pieces of fabric covered in bright, vivid colours, pictures and words. There’s one with a train, one with a washing machine, one with a cup, and another with a blender… Try reading the words next to the pictures. What language are they in? Are they all in the same language, or are there two different languages? Antonio Gritón was a Mexican artist, and the main language spoken in Mexico is Spanish. But there’s another language, too, called Nahuatl, which far fewer people speak today. It’s a very old language: people were already speaking it 500 years ago! Then the Spanish arrived, conquered cities, and imposed their rules and their language. Over time, Nahuatl became less widely spoken in many places, and people feared that it might disappear, along with the memory of all its words. But Antonio believed it was very important to keep Nahuatl alive. Every language is precious, and every language tells us something about who we are. We are shaped by what we do, where we live, what we eat, and the words and language we use. So, what did he do? He created a dictionary! But not an ordinary dictionary, with words written on blank pages. In his special dictionary, every word in Nahuatl has its Spanish translation and, most importantly, a picture painted on a huge piece of colourful fabric. Sometimes Antonio would spread these fabrics out along the streets or hang them from windows along the streets of Mexico City, like banners. In this way, he transformed the city into one big classroom where people could learn Nahuatl and help keep its words alive. For Antonio Gritón, it was important for children to learn the language, because the things we learn when we’re young are the things we remember as we grow up. And what about you? Which word in your language would you never want people to forget? Is there a word that means something special to you, a word you would like people to still be using 30, 100 or even 2,000 years from now? How many people do you know who speak other languages? Try asking them, too, which word they love most and would like people to keep using in the future, both near and far. Who knows? Maybe you could create a collective dictionary of words we should never forget, just like Antonio Gritón’s! Now it’s time for the next stop on our journey through Artissima. Turn around and head to the gallery right in front of you: Artopia, number 11 along the red corridor.

Here we are at the Artopia gallery from Milan. There’s a very special artwork we need to find. It’s a large piece of fabric, partly rolled up, with abstract marks drawn on it. Have you found it? It almost looks like a secret code… But what could it be a code for? Wait a minute… Shhh! Can you hear that, too? Doesn’t it sound like music? A tambourine, a violin, a guitar, and a rhythmic song… That’s because the marks you can see on this piece of fabric represent the steps of a traditional dance from Puglia, a region in southern Italy. It has a very unusual name: ‘Pizzica serpentata’. The word ‘serpentata’ comes from ‘serpente’, the Italian word for snake. So, could this dance have something to do with the way a snake moves? Someone studied the movements of this very old dance and tried to turn them into a kind of diagram. Each mark represents a movement of the body. It’s a bit like a message in a bottle that has travelled all the way from the past, but one that we need to decipher! Let me tell you who left us these mysterious marks. It’s an artist called Elena Mazzi, who lives here in Turin. She became very curious about the pizzica serpentata because, in the past, people believed this dance could heal bad moods and negative feelings. It was almost like a magical cure! So Elena tried to write down the dance using marks and symbols, as if she were writing down a secret formula so she could remember it forever. Would you like to try to crack the code? Maybe it could help you feel better, too, and chase away any gloomy thoughts. Give each mark a movement and create the dance you think has been written down. Perhaps the name itself will give you a clue… Pizzica serpentata… Hmm, how do you think a snake might move? But be careful! Don’t dance here in the booth, because there isn’t much room and you might knock something over. Take a photo of the artwork instead, and once you’re outside, find a nice, open space where you can dance! Before heading to the next stop on our journey through time, see if you can find another artwork by Elena Mazzi in this booth. It’s made from materials that are both very fragile and very strong. It looks precious and mysterious, as if it might hold traces of the past… or perhaps tell us something about the future. Here’s a clue: it has something to do with bones and an aquatic animal! When you’re ready, head to the Biju gallery, number 13 along the fuchsia corridor, for the final stop on our journey!

Here we are, at our very last stop! One last time before we say goodbye, keep your eyes open and take a good look at everything on display in this gallery from Romania. On the wall in front of you and on the pedestal in the middle of the booth, there are small fragments of painted walls. They look like archaeological finds from ancient buildings. It feels more like being in a museum of ancient history than at a contemporary art fair! But didn’t we say at the beginning that all the artworks here were recent? So what on earth are archaeological finds doing here?! I suggest you move a little closer to the wall — but be very careful not to touch anything. Everything here is precious. Look closely at what’s painted on these fragments: there are ancient buildings, pyramids, and a monumental gateway that looks as though it belongs to some ancient civilisation… But wait a minute! What’s a nuclear power plant doing there, with its gigantic chimneys? And that satellite dish? And those electricity pylons? On the pedestal, there’s an ancient pyramid painted on something that looks like a computer motherboard. But what time do these objects come from? Are they ancient or modern? All this confusion is part of an idea by a Romanian artist called Nicolae Romanitan. Nicolae creates artworks that look just like ancient archaeological finds, but they contain clues from our recent past and present: video games, computers, factories. It’s almost as if all these things had already become ancient archaeological objects. When we think about archaeology, we always think about the past. But the things we own, the homes we live in, and the cities we live in today will also become archaeological finds hundreds of years from now. What will future archaeologists discover about our civilisation? They’ll dig for the remains of buildings, but perhaps they’ll also investigate the codes needed to access our computers and smartphones, which by then will have become ancient and mysterious objects. They won’t find frescoes, but photos of our dogs, birthday videos, emails, WhatsApp messages, and even our school grades in online records! What would you like future archaeologists to discover about you, and what would you rather keep hidden forever? We’ve reached the end of this long and surprising journey through Artissima. Through the works of the artists we’ve met along the way, we’ve hopped back and forth between the present and the future, with a few trips into the past, too. What animals will there be in 100, 1,000 or even 10,000 years? What will the vegetation on Earth look like? Which words and languages will still be remembered? Will people be able to decipher the secret code of a dance, just as we did? And what will archaeologists discover among the things we’ve left behind? As we imagine all these possibilities, it’s time for me to say goodbye. Thank you for sharing your time with me… And speaking of the future, shall we meet again next year?