Grandchildren, a film by Luca Trevisani. The author and curator Paola Nicolin will discuss about it with the architectural historian Francesca Picchi
Grandchildren is a film by Luca Trevisani, made in 2015 on the occasion of the exhibition Comunità Italia. Architecture, landscape and city from the post-war period to the year 2000, curated by Alberto Ferlenga and Marco Biraghi, currently showing at La Triennale di Milano (available until 6 March 2016). The project is the result of the invitation by curator Paola Nicolin to the artist to reflect on the historical memory of three Italian cultural institutions: the Venice Biennale, founded in 1895, the Milan Triennale, inaugurated in 1923, and the MAXXI of Rome, inaugurated in 2010.
More specifically, the focus is on some significant episodes in the history of said institutions: the XV Milan Triennale in 1973 and the project Teorema Tautologico, curated by Nanda Vigo, Aldo Rossi’s Teatro del Mondo in the exhibition Venezia e lo Spazio Scenico in 1979, the 1st Venice Architecture Biennale in 1980, the MAXXI square. Trevisani chooses to have these episodes interpreted by a group of children. In the film, it is they who dismantle and reassemble the history of the institutions, transforming it into active memory.
Through the collage of archival images and new footage, shot among Giorgio de Chirico’s Mysterious Baths, Alberto Burri’s Teatro Continuo and Arman’s Musical Accumulation and Sitting in Parco Sempione – public sculptural interventions made on the occasion of the 1973 Triennale for the exhibition Contatto-Arte-Città – we see them working in the wake of the voices of Paolo Portoghesi, Nanda Vigo, Giulio Macchi, Daniel Libeskind, Zaha Hadid, Aldo Rossi.
In the film the children’s activity results in an interweaving of gesture and actions, of conscious and unconscious choices that, between memory, intuition and chance, follow one another at every turn of the game.
In recovering the dimension of childhood and the seriousness of the game, Grandchildren is a metaphor of how it is possible to combine the transmission of knowledge and planning for the future and how freedom of imagination and the possibility of subverting canons can contribute to the future of the city. The film will be screened as part of the event.
