Bernardo Giorgi
Art and Society Course Instructor

http://www.strozzina.org/open_studios/os-2010-Bernardo+Giorgi

Over the past ten years Bernardo Giorgi has developed a multifaceted work (Borders Project) on the concept of territorial and cultural borders observed and analysed from a dual perspective: on the one hand, a theoretical evaluation based on a careful study of the maps that he has picked up on his numerous trips abroad; and on the other, a candid exploration of geopolitical issues and of the identity of the places which he has visited. The projects, in which the artist establishes a direct rapport with the territory and its people (Borders of Eden, 2004/2006 – Transiberiana, 2005) are spawned by a need to explore the network of invisible relationships and symbolic structures shared by those who live in border areas – ambivalent and complex situations that can only be understood through direct experience. Thus the artist needs to undertake the experience of travel in the first person. Travelling not only alters the perspective of a person's observations, it is also, and above all, a tool for exploration used to penetrate the living experience of an area, a fully-fledged performance capable of triggering participation, of establishing relationships and of opening up paths of communication. Giorgi activates communities with his presence, interviewing, photographing and constructing moments for communication to enable him to gather material with which to then build up his identity maps. His interest in the relationship between man and the environment and in the way in which these two players influence one another are elements that recur also in a project devoted to the borders between city neighbourhoods (Patterns 2004/2005). The perimeter of squares, of streets or of entire neighbourhoods with strongly individual charateristics in Turin and in Kostrzyn (Poland) are the basis on which he develops paper patterns. The clothes made from these patterns are a transposition of the city's fabric that offers a visual map linking the human body and the territory.

Projects in which Bernardo is involved include:

http://vimeo.com/34176683

http://borders.de/

http://www.tempozulu.org/

http://borders-de.blogspot.it/

http://www.comune.bologna.it/iperbole/iceberg/gap/cv_giorgicozzi.html

Sart life