Elisabetta Consonni (IT)

Winner Project OPEN call /// CONTEMPORARY [URBAN] CREATION 2019 – new production

“The first man who, having fenced a piece of land, thought to say ‘this is mine’ and found people stupid enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. How many crimes, how many wars, how many murders, how many miseries and errors he would have spared mankind” (J.J. Russeau, Origin of Inequality, 1754).

Ti voglio un bene pubblico is an urban game that reflects on dividing infrastructures such as gates, walls, fences. So much of what surrounds us is made of walls and fences; understanding their meaning, from time to time, is a necessary civic practice. It is significant to note that the article of the civil code that regulates the construction of fences to secure private property is called ‘ius escludendi alios’: to determine one’s own by excluding the other.
When does a wall stop protecting and start dividing, segregating and excluding? And when a public space is fenced off and access to it is restricted, how much of that public space remains? When a wall is put up, how much of what is behind it can we not know?

Itinerant urban game – in Italian

A project by Elisabetta Consonni In collaboration with Cristina Pancini, Sara Catellani and Barbara Stimoli With the support of IntercettAzioni – Centro di Residenza Artistica della Lombardia (a project of Circuito CLAPS and ZONA K, Industria Scenica, Milano Musica, Teatro delle Moire) With the consultancy of Adriano Cancelleri A production: Pergine Festival Co-production ZONA K, In\Visible Cities/Contaminazioni digitali, Terni Festival

Elisabetta Consonni has been active in the reflection and practice of how art can be a detonator of social change since 2014 with Ergonomica, a research container for the relationship of the body with urban space. As part of this research, she accompanies the theoretical study to the realization of actions such as: “We want to become architecture” and “Go with the flow” (Poland, 2014), the choreographed construction of “Pompenpurg Park” (Rotterdam, Architecture Biennale 2014), “Zeno’s second Paradox” (Milan, 2016), “Enough Space for the Tenderest of Attentions” (project for the Dance Biennale 2016). He curated the symposium Spazio Ergonomico at the Biennale Danza 2016.