Aves project win the TENT Academy Award 2015.

Description by Valeria Baudo.

Aves project consists in a group of artists whose researches are focused on the dynamics of living; these studies are conducted through instruments such as interviews and dialogues, and actions executed on the field such as monitoring and mapping.

The collected material is later presented through different media (video, photography, installation, graphic etc.) in order to build a narrative on the forms of the contemporary.

A crucial aspect of the work is the relational dimension that still allows confrontations with experts of the landscape and researchers of urban biodiversity. Purpose of the project is to tell the present by spinning a drama—which appears, in its progression, balanced between a scientific reliability and the ethical and aesthetical production.

Aves project is conducted by Matteo Signorelli, Demetrio Giacomelli and Matteo Gatti; since the beginning of 2015, the filmmaker Lorenzo Martellacci is a stable collaborator of the group.

The occasions when we could view the researches of Aves project weren’t limited to the Fine Art Academy of Brera, where the artists studied at the department of New Technologies, but were extended to the exhibition ExPolis—the relational form from 2014 and to the group show Paolo Martore curated in May 2014 at the Scuderie Aldobrandini Museum in Frascati (Rome); in June of the same year, the artists presented their work during the Biennale Session of Brera in Venice, chaired by Mauro Folci, Massimo Mazzone and Benedetta Tagliabue, and just a month later the group was at the CCCB, Center de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona as part of the international festival of Arquitecturas Colectivas; one year later we are finally able to check the long road this guys have traveled before achieving the city of Rotterdam.

The project, in fact, won the Best Foreign Film Award competition settled up by the TENT Academy of Arts; the three artists, thereby, will be hosted for two months in the Residency Program of the academy: definitely a great opportunity for the group, since TENT is one of the major institutions for the arts in Rotterdam as well as a reference point for creative practice in the Dutch and European context.

The prized work is titled Frogs Crossing and consists in a videotape that, ranging between documentary and video art, analyzes the delicate balance between humans and animals as well as the progressive loss of the boundaries which divide them.

In a time that seems to encourage individualistic positions we are relieved to see the results achieved by a teamwork; as in this case, researches should always represent the convergence of different skills made, nevertheless, available to the public —especially if such researches are conducted by a group of people that, despite different educations, collaborate to a same narrative, sharing a common goal.

Es un placer ver premiado a un colectivo ya que, en una época muy individualista como esta, es importante que la investigación tenga como objetivo común el generar y compartir saberes y los Aves project lo están haciendo muy bien.

Text.- Valeria Baudo.