The Exhibition Other Stories – Altre Storie at Palazzo Revoltella, Trieste (ended on 18 Novembre 2018)  analyzes the relationship between contemporary Art an the phenomenon of Migration, focusing on the concepts of limes, “interstitial” identity, borders, movement and separation.

Mona Hatoum, Measures of Distance (1988). Courtesy of Altre Storie – Other Stories.

This condition appears absolutely fundamental in the current European scenario from a politic and cultural-artistic point of view, and also because the themes connected to the idea of diaspora, detachment and nomadism are really compelling. The contemporary art practice could investigate this heterogeneous and complex reality in a multidisciplinary way, by means of different medium, forms and poetics, imaging and tracing “other” possible stories about the migrant condition. The exhibition becomes a place where different narrations and tales could flourish through visual arts, literature, dance and music.   

Six international artists are presented in the exhibition: Mona Hatoum, Fiona Tan, Isaac Julien, Thrin T. Min-ha, Arkadi Zaides and Admir Shkurtaj.  

Fiona Tan, May You Live in Interesting Times (1997). Courtesy of Altre Storie – Other Stories.

The Anglo-Palestinian artist Mona Hatum presents the video-installation Measures of Distance (1988), in which artist’s mother is shot while having a shower. This private moment is accompanied by sounds, words and signs taken from the letters written to Mona Hatoum by her mother, in a compresence that evokes the distance – in time and space – of the two women. Fiona Tan explores the coexistence of different cultures and identities with the medium of video-art, while the filmmaker and artist Isaac Julien (1960, London) focuses his research on the hybrid nature of a multicultural condition, often evoked in his production by the image of the sea.  Trinh T. Minh-ha is a teoric and visual artist who explores the sense of belonging through anthropological elements; her works analyze the postcolonial reality and the connection between this historical subject and the contemporary globalization. In Arkadi Zaides’ poetic choreography and technology result fundamental: at Other Stories – Altre Storie, the artist presents INFINI#1 (2016) a video installation part of the project Violence of Inscriptions, in which a particular border of Lesbo is supervised in a technological way. At last, Admir Shkurtaj exhibits Il naufragio (2014), a visual and sonorous installation that retraces the first Mediterranea fatal shipwreck happened in 1997.

Trieste (Tergeste) is probably the northern city of Mediterraneo. The center rises upon Mare Adriaco, between the Italian peninsula and the Balkan area; Trieste represents an intercultural location and a crossroad among Europe, West and East. This cultural plurality reflects his inestimable value of the Trieste exhibition. 

1—18 Novembre 2019

For more info visit the website: https://www.altrestorie-otherstories.com/mostra

Images: https://www.altrestorie-otherstories.com/mostra

Text by: Valentina Bartalesi