Tentacular Invasions

Potenza, 2006–2007. A project by the Delta Centre for Art and Culture and Teri Volini for AATO 1.

The project

The Delta Centre for Art and Culture and Teri Volini for AATO 1

The Delta Centre for Art and Culture produces and spreads artistic and cultural knowledge through the all-round project approach known as Participatory Art, to have a positive impact on society through art.

One of the Cultural Centre’s main goals is awareness and practice of environmental sustainability. It has long been active through exhibitions of paintings and photographs, video screenings, talks with slide projection, educational work in schools, concrete demonstrative actions and Major Events, with nationally recognised Land Art installations including:
– The Rhythm of Fire – May 1999 – on the Sicilian volcanic mountain, under the patronage of the Etna Park Authority and the Province of Potenza
– The Invisible Real – The Web – September 1999 – on the Lucanian Little Dolomites, under the patronage of the Basilicata Region, the Municipality of Castelmezzano and the Italian Alpine Club of Potenza
– Stone Document – in Sicily, November 2000; in Basilicata, January 2001; in Calabria, September 2001, under the patronage of various bodies and of the Municipality of Potenza, Department of Culture
– The Opening of the Heart – July 2003 – in the Lombard sub-Alpine area, under the patronage of the Livigno tourist board

and many others, honoured by media coverage and by publication in prestigious magazines such as Airone, Basilicata Regione, Flash Art, Art Diary, PietrArte, etc. See the performances.

As for the promoter of this Event, AATO 1 – the Optimal Territorial Area Authority responsible for unified waste management in the Province of Potenza – it had already honoured the Artist in 2005 by sponsoring Message In The Bottle in the town of Rionero, Basilicata: a complex educational and artistic project with environmental awareness-raising, carried out in May at the Levi Art Institute in Rionero and concluded amid the enthusiasm of pupils and teachers with a large installation, a photographic exhibition, an original video and the digital publication of a Dossier on Land Art, also published on www.atounopotenza.it (project no. 9, 2005).

Supporting AATO 1 on environmental education and waste recycling, in 2007 the Delta Centre for Art and Culture proposed Tentacular Invasions, an Event based on a large installation focused on raising awareness and communicating to civil society and young people the correct use and recycling of a material that perhaps more than any other needs to be reused: plastic.

In conceiving the project, Teri Volini set out to:
– build – with the very recycled material in question – a Work of art of strong impact;
– draw as much attention as possible to the problem of recycling, communicating its urgency effectively and in an alternative way – as reinforcement – compared with the usual media approaches, to which the public has grown accustomed and which have therefore lost effectiveness;
– strengthen civil society’s knowledge of the problem;
– bring about real awareness in it, above all among young people;
– achieve the resulting change in mental habits and in practice.

The work was structured in two phases:

Phase 1 – Preparation

a – Educational work in several schools in Potenza
– It began on 1 March with environmental awareness work aimed at young people, who represent the future, explaining in detail the damage caused by unaware use of plastics and then the possibilities that conscious recycling and reuse offer society;
– it explained how this can happen;
– solutions were sought on what to do to bring about a change in mentality and habits;
– the project was explained to teachers and pupils, together with their involvement: the separate collection of a large quantity of plastic bottles, brought to school every day so they could be reused to build the work.

b – Artistic work
Art can do a great deal, awakening awareness in each of us, making us feel part of a whole on which we depend and in which we must act to bring about change.
– A Land Art workshop was held – Teri Volini being a land artist, cultural organiser and theorist of the field – with lessons, videos and slide projections, to show what it means to make art in defence of the environment and how important it is to carry this awareness into every area of life.

Phase 2 – Making the Work in participatory art

a – Building the structure in participatory art: the work was made in active collaboration with the same schools where the educational work had taken place. In each school several parts of the work were made: tentacles 7–9 metres long.
b – Installing the work: the various parts of the work, already exhibited and studied in the schools, were brought together, transported and installed in the chosen place, after the necessary permits had been requested and received.
c – Publicising the event in the city and the region: with targeted press work and in collaboration with the bodies involved, the Event was publicised regionally and nationally.
d – Public presentation of the Event with a forum, a talk on Land Art, a photographic exhibition and a video screening.
e – The exhibition on the Event is part of a broader exhibition on recycling and Land Art.

Tentacular Invasions – a project by Teri Volini

An alien presence is floating around us, close to us….

A strange being – plant, thing or animal? – has invaded our environment: it is now so gigantic that our home, and the world itself, can no longer contain it, and it bursts out of every opening, threatening with its relentless overflow to spread everywhere, invading gardens, streets, rivers, seas… even the sky.

Tentacular Invasions are the result of our carelessness towards the materials we produce, and of how late we are in reusing them.

The structure consists of a series of enormous tentacles, each formed by a shaped net containing a myriad of recycled plastic bottles, collected by those who took part in building the work, coordinated by the artist and made with all her collaborators.

The monster is installed in the chosen place, and from the doors, windows, skylights, balconies, chimneys and terraces the transparent, gigantic, threatening tentacles spill out.

The message is clear and unambiguous: this material – so versatile and now indispensable – if it is not separately collected, recycled and reused, risks invading and submerging us, a real tentacular, poisonous monster.

The size of the work and the astonishment it arouses are not accidental, nor do they answer to easy sensationalism: through wonder, the work focuses attention and prompts a search for the many important meanings it carries.

Teri Volini – Delta Centre for Art and Culture, p.le Sofia 21 – 85100 Potenza – 339 24 14 133 – terivolini.art@gmail.com

The action in schools

The complex work, begun in November 2006, was concentrated from 1 March 2007 in an intense educational action in three schools in Potenza – S. Maria primary school and the La Vista and Busciolano middle schools – raising the awareness of the pupils, who took on the active role of educators of adults and, with a punctual daily ritual, filled the 13 enormous tentacles – meanwhile made in each school – with a great number of empty plastic bottles.

The structure in Largo Isabelli

The tentacular structure was set up in the city centre, in Largo Isabelli, after collecting the various tentacles, by then full of bottles, from the schools – thanks to the willingness of the residents of the chosen building and of the surrounding homes – and remained there until August.

On 7 March the cultural centre organised: a conference in the Sala dell’Arco of the Municipality of Potenza to present the project to the citizens; a talk on Land Art with image projection; an exhibition of drawings and projects by the three schools.