CENSURAE
2023
Curated by Rossella Della Vecchia and Vania Caruso
Group exhibition on censorship and its contemporary forms
Galleria 291 Est, Rome · 14 April – 12 May 2023
Paradoxical and selfish, fickle and imponderable, therefore, unpredictable, and indeterminable, contemporary censorship imputes us as unconscious censors! And it is precisely our censorial (in)sensitivity that underlines a general obscurantist advance both in an anachronistic incitement to regime propaganda – it happens in Egypt, China, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Russia and in sixty-six other countries – and in a good social custom, also enshrined in Article 21 of our Constitution, which proves to be ingrained in Italian culture, as Federico Fellini already observed: “There is fear of authority and dogma, submission to the canon and the formula, which have made us very obsequious. All this leads straight to censorship. If there were no censorship, Italians would do it to themselves.” It should therefore come as no surprise that Italy lags behind on press freedom, ranking 58th in the World Press Freedom Index 2022.
THE MANIFESTO, by Rossella Della Vecchia · download the PDF ›
Galleria 291 Est
Censurae, Galleria 291 Est, Rome, 2023.
Censurae, Galleria 291 Est, Rome, 2023.
Censurae, Galleria 291 Est, Rome, 2023.
Censurae, Galleria 291 Est, Rome, 2023.
Censurae, Galleria 291 Est, Rome, 2023.
Censurae, Galleria 291 Est, Rome, 2023, Irene Albino & Ellen Jonsson.
Censurae, Galleria 291 Est, Rome, 2023, Massimiliano Amati.
Censurae, Galleria 291 Est, Rome, 2023, Annabella Cuomo.
Censurae, Galleria 291 Est, Rome, 2023, Kawamura Gun.
Censurae, Galleria 291 Est, Rome, 2023, Simone Lucciola.
Censurae, Galleria 291 Est, Rome, 2023, Andro Malis.
Censurae, Galleria 291 Est, Rome, 2023, Chiara Mu.
Censurae, Galleria 291 Est, Rome, 2023, Cristina Piciacchia.
Censurae, Galleria 291 Est, Rome, 2023, Triss (Yingzi) Qian.
Censurae, Galleria 291 Est, Rome, 2023, Paolo Scarfone.
Censurae, Galleria 291 Est, Rome, 2023, Marco Scola.
Il gioco del Bando – Deluxe Edition
IL GIOCO DEL BANDO, an installation in the form of a board game, created for the group exhibition CENSURAE. The work focuses on self-censorship, draws its inspiration from the game Suffragetto, a provocative and educational playground, devised by the suffragettes in the early 1900s. Through a process of détournement, the game becomes a γυμνάσιον (gymnasion), to exorcise the patchy processes of artistic and intellectual research, often cut short by bureaucratic practice. Box, board and pawns set in motion a reflection on how artistic proposals, today, are shaped and constrained by rules, unable to listen to the needs of research and production in the sector. Along with the game, a questionnaire is online: archive cards on self-censorship, to gather a collective reflection on the present and on productivity.
This research moves in three directions: opening a public debate, experiencing the work as a playful action, and gathering experiences through the archive cards. Today the need to work with new games reawakens, to arm ourselves with humanity in the present and not give in to isolation.
IL GIOCO DEL BANDO, 40x40 cm, paper, box, print on textile
Gioco del Bando, Censurae, Galleria 291 Est, 2023, print on textile.
Gioco del Bando, Censurae, Galleria 291 Est, 2023, particular box.
Gioco del Bando, Censurae, Galleria 291 Est, 2023, particular box.
Gioco del Bando, Censurae, Galleria 291 Est, 2023, installation.
