THE NOMADIC ALTERNATIVE

A workshop by Adrian Schvarzstein

This year, Fnas Lab Castelbuono will once again move and change its area of work, while maintaining its focus on decentralization and active participation of the inhabitants. The main activities of this year will take place within the gardens of Palazzo Failla, currently disused public gardens hidden within the courtyard of the same palace. The "abandoned" garden becomes a bearer of vitality, a synonym of freedom, expression, and life outside the contemporary values of performance, efficiency, and productivity. Speaking of the garden as a new way of thinking about the relationship with space, and consequently thinking about a new role, a new function for humans on earth; a function close to that of a guardian, protector, and caretaker of the space they inhabit. The common thread of this year will thus be the relationship between performing arts and nature.

Within this garden, throughout the duration of the Fnas Lab creation residency, work will revolve around the concept of paradise on earth - trying to create an unconventional space to go beyond the limits of restrictive barriers, not only physical but also ideological. A temporary setup, a relational infrastructure to inhabit places that sometimes exist and sometimes don't, placing cultural parameters that characterize contemporaneity at the center of reflection: mobility, flexibility, adaptability, and dynamism.

A paradisiacal camp to convey the idea of a liquid city where spaces for staying are alternated with spaces for moving. A laboratory for artists who will study the territory day by day, inhabit it, and in the evening, within the garden, elaborate and share their journey both internally and with the inhabitants of the involved neighborhoods.

Unlike the Fnas Lab 2023 edition, where the participating artists entered the homes of the inhabitants of the Vetriera neighborhood, this year the goal will be to bring the inhabitants of Castelbuono into this "Paradise," to make it a place of gathering, cultural exchange for a dynamic week, attentive to the transversality of languages, the contamination between disciplines and genres.

This nomadism reflects the working methodology chosen by the Association Il Cinghiale e la Balena: identifying a non-central area of the town, artistically and humanely redeveloping it, and then moving again.

Fnas Lab 2024 will once again collaborate with the Municipality of Castelbuono, with the Civic Museum, and also with the Minà Palumbo Natural History Museum. Active collaboration is also planned for this year with the master and composer Nicola Mogavero from the Moger Arte e Cultura Association of Castelbuono and the Primo Spazio music school, to integrate performances and live music.

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