Binta Diaw In Search of Our Ancestors' Gardens - 23rd January - 31st March 2020 - Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio
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Binta Diaw
In Search of Our Ancestors’ Gardens
23rd January - 31st March 2020
Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio
Binta Diaw
“In Search of Our Ancestors’ Gardens”
Inaugurazione mercoledì 22 gennaio 2020, dalle 18.30 alle 21.00
23 gennaio - 31 marzo 2020
Binta Diaw, Paysage Corporel III, 2018, gessi su stampa giclée su carta 100% cotone
montata su dibond, 60 x 90cm, csy the artist and Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio
Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio inizia il nuovo anno continuando nella propria vocazione di ricerca di nuove
visioni, proponendo la mostra di Binta Diaw, giovane artista italo-senegalese alla sua prima personale nella sua
città natale.
La ricerca di Binta Diaw rivela due anime profondamente interconnesse: da un lato una matrice intima e
autobiografica, che la spinge nella lotta continua tra la sua Italianità e Africanità, per arrivare ad uno spazio di
negoziazione identitario che le includa entrambe; dall’altro una conoscenza matura e appassionata dei Black,
Cultural e Feminist Studies.
Un modello fondamentale in questo senso è stato per Binta la scrittrice, poetessa e attivista afro-americana Alice
Walker, autrice della raccolta di saggi “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens” che rappresenta ad oggi un testo simbolo
del femminismo black per la forza delle rivendicazioni politiche e sociali attraverso cui la Walker ha dato voce alle
sofferenze, alle tragedie, alle ingiustizie e oppressioni vissute da donne nere ieri, come oggi. La contemporaneità
del testo, ha portato l’artista ad immedesimarsi nelle parole e nel continuo questioning dell’autrice: “What does
it mean to be a black woman and an artist?—”
Il titolo della mostra, “In Search of Our Ancestors’ Gardens”, sottolinea l’importanza ancestrale degli Ancestors.
Questi ultimi sono l’insieme di tradizioni, rituali, corpi, storie e voci mai ascoltate in netto contrasto con coloro che
invece hanno scritto a modo loro la storia.
La mostra si presenta, in una logica anti-coloniale, come uno spazio memoriale. Uno spazio che omaggia la visibilità
e l’importanza della vita, attraverso la simbologia della terra che é inscritta nel corpo umano.
Questa chiave di lettura, emerge con immensa potenza visiva nell’opera “Chorus of Soil”. “Chorus of Soil” è una
riproduzione di una nave da schiavi, su larga scala, di una planimetria settecentesca fatta di terra e di semi.
L’installazione è concepita come spazio di memorizzazione, ma anche e soprattutto come spazio di nuova vita,
perché si manifesta nel materiale utilizzato, dal quale possono crescere nuovi germogli.
La scelta di piantare semi di melone nasce da una riflessione dell’artista che l’ha portata a sottolineare il nesso
tra i campi di cotone e le piantagioni mafiose del sud Italia, dove migliaia di migranti uomini e donne, sono
sistematicamente sfruttati vivendo sotto la minaccia dei “caporali”. L’opera assume così una grandiosa valenza
simbolica del fragile equilibrio tra vita e morte, e tra passato e presente.
Gli elementi naturali ritornano anche nelle opere “Paysage Corporel I, II e III”, in cui l’artista ha fotografato
diverse parti del proprio corpo e le ha successivamente rielaborate con l’uso dei gessetti, tracciando sulla
superficie fotografica tracce di colore che mutano le linee e le forme del corpo in strade, percorsi, paesaggi
armoniosi e idealmente senza fine. Queste ultime, sono il frutto di un processo di questioning, di soul searching
continuo che trova affinità nel movimento ciclico femminile, della natura e dell’arte.
Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio
Binta Diaw
“In Search of Our Ancestors’ Gardens”
Opening Wednesday 22nd January 2020, from 6.30 pm to 9 pm
23rd January - 31st March 2020
Binta Diaw, Paysage Corporel III, 2018, chalk on giclée print on 100% cotton paper
mounted to dibond, 60 x 90cm, csy the artist and Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio
Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio begins the new year by keeping with its vocation of researching new visions,
proposing the exhibition by Binta Diaw, a young Italian-Senegalese artist at her first solo show in her hometown.
Binta Diaw’s research reveals two deeply interconnected souls: an intimate and autobiographical side that pushes
her in the continuous struggle between her Italianness and Africanness, into an identity space of negotiation which
includes both; on the other side a mature and passionate knowledge of Black, Cultural and Feminist Studies.
An important reference, in this sense, is the African-American writer, poetess and activist Alice Walker, author of the
collection of essays “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens” which represents a symbol book of Black Feminism,
for its political strength and social claims through which Walker has given voice to the suffering, tragedies,
injustices and oppression experienced by black women yesterday, as today. The modernity of the book, leads
the artist to identify herself in the words and the continuous questioning of the author: “What does it mean to be a
black woman and an artist -in the Italian political and cultural context?—”
The title of the exhibition, “In Search of Our Ancestors’ Gardens” enlighten the ancestral importance of Ancestors.
They are traditions, rituals, bodies, stories and voices never listened and invisibilized by those who have written
history in their way. Through an anti-colonial logic, the exhibition is presented as a memorial space. Space which
gives visibility and importance to Life, through the symbology of the soil seen by the artist as inscribed in the
human body.
This interpretation emerges with immense visual power in the work “Chorus of Soil”. “Chorus of Soil” is a
reproduction of a slave ship, on a large scale, of an 18th-century plan made of soil and seeds. The installation is
conceived as a space of memorialization, but also and especially as a space of new life because it manifests itself
in the material used, where new buds can grow.
The choice to plant melon seeds comes from a reflection of the artist that led her to consider the link between
cotton slavery fields and mafia plantations in southern Italy, where thousands of male and female migrants are
systematically exploited and live under the threat of the “caporali” (illegal recruiters of agricultural laborers).
The work assumes an impressive symbolic value of the fragile equilibrium between life and death, and between
past and present.
The natural elements also return in the works “Paysage Corporel I, II and III,” in which the artist has photographed
different parts of her own body. The photos have been reworked with the use of chalk, tracing on the photographic
surface, traces of colours that turn the lines and forms of the body into harmonious and ideally endless journeys,
paths, landscapes. These traces are the result of a process of questioning, of continuous soul-searching related to the
cyclical movement of women, nature and art.
Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio
Binta Diaw
In Search of Our Ancestors’ Gardens, 2020
Installation view at Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio, Milan
Courtesy the artist and Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio
Photo-credits: Antonio Maniscalco
Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio
+390236554554 | info@giampaoloabbondio.com | www.giampaoloabbondio.com | www.artsy.net/giampaoloabbondio
Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio
Binta Diaw
In Search of Our Ancestors’ Gardens, 2020
Installation view at Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio, Milan
Courtesy the artist and Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio
Photo-credits: Antonio Maniscalco
Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio
+390236554554 | info@giampaoloabbondio.com | www.giampaoloabbondio.com | www.artsy.net/giampaoloabbondio
Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio
Binta Diaw
In Search of Our Ancestors’ Gardens, 2020
Installation view at Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio, Milan
Courtesy the artist and Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio
Photo-credits: Antonio Maniscalco
Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio
+390236554554 | info@giampaoloabbondio.com | www.giampaoloabbondio.com | www.artsy.net/giampaoloabbondio
Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio
Binta Diaw
In Search of Our Ancestors’ Gardens, 2020
Installation view at Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio, Milan
Courtesy the artist and Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio
Photo-credits: Antonio Maniscalco
Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio
+390236554554 | info@giampaoloabbondio.com | www.giampaoloabbondio.com | www.artsy.net/giampaoloabbondio
Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio
In Search of Our Ancestors’ Gardens
23rd January - 31st March 2020
Works on Show
Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio
+390236554554 | info@giampaoloabbondio.com | www.giampaoloabbondio.com | www.artsy.net/giampaoloabbondio
Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio
Binta Diaw
Paysage Corporel I, 2018
giclée print on 100% cotton paper mounted on dibond
225 x 80 cm (image)
227,5 x 82,5 cm (frame)
Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio
+390236554554 | info@giampaoloabbondio.com | www.giampaoloabbondio.com | www.artsy.net/giampaoloabbondio
Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio
Binta Diaw
Paysage Corporel II, 2018
giclée print on 100% cotton paper mounted on dibond
150 x 150 cm (image)
152,5 x 152,5 cm (frame)
Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio
+390236554554 | info@giampaoloabbondio.com | www.giampaoloabbondio.com | www.artsy.net/giampaoloabbondioGalleria Giampaolo Abbondio
Binta Diaw
Paysage Corporel III, 2018
giclée print on 100% cotton paper mounted on dibond
60 x 90 cm (image)
62,5 x 92,5 cm (frame)
Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio
+390236554554 | info@giampaoloabbondio.com | www.giampaoloabbondio.com | www.artsy.net/giampaoloabbondioGalleria Giampaolo Abbondio
Binta Diaw
Chorus of Soil, 2020
soil and buds of melon plant
site-specific installation
Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio
+390236554554 | info@giampaoloabbondio.com | www.giampaoloabbondio.com | www.artsy.net/giampaoloabbondioGalleria Giampaolo Abbondio
In Search of Our Ancestors’ Gardens
23rd January - 31st March 2020
Making of...
Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio
+390236554554 | info@giampaoloabbondio.com | www.giampaoloabbondio.com | www.artsy.net/giampaoloabbondioGalleria Giampaolo Abbondio
Durante l’allestimento della mostra “In Search of Our Ancestors’ Gardens”, Binta Diaw interviene sulla
superficie delle stampe fotografiche con l’uso dei gessi colorati.
During the setting-up of the show “In Search of Our Ancestors’ Gardens”, Binta Diaw intervenes on the surface
of the photographic prints with pieces of colored chalks.
Photo-credits: Olga Michahelles
Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio
+390236554554 | info@giampaoloabbondio.com | www.giampaoloabbondio.com | www.artsy.net/giampaoloabbondioGalleria Giampaolo Abbondio
Durante l’allestimento della mostra “In Search of Our Ancestors’ Gardens”, Binta Diaw interviene sulla
superficie delle stampe fotografiche con l’uso dei gessi colorati.
During the setting-up of the show “In Search of Our Ancestors’ Gardens”, Binta Diaw intervenes on the surface
of the photographic prints with pieces of colored chalks.
Photo-credits: Olga Michahelles
Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio
+390236554554 | info@giampaoloabbondio.com | www.giampaoloabbondio.com | www.artsy.net/giampaoloabbondioGalleria Giampaolo Abbondio
Durante l’allestimento della mostra “In Search of Our Ancestors’ Gardens”, Binta Diaw interviene sulla
superficie delle stampe fotografiche con l’uso dei gessi colorati.
During the setting-up of the show “In Search of Our Ancestors’ Gardens”, Binta Diaw intervenes on the surface
of the photographic prints with pieces of colored chalks.
Photo-credits: Olga Michahelles
Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio
+390236554554 | info@giampaoloabbondio.com | www.giampaoloabbondio.com | www.artsy.net/giampaoloabbondioGalleria Giampaolo Abbondio
Durante l’allestimento della mostra “In Search of Our Ancestors’ Gardens”, Binta Diaw plasma piccoli
mucchi di terra, seguendo il modello di un’antica mappa ottocentesca di una nave negriera, per dare
forma all’installazione Chorus of Soil.
During the setting-up of her show “In Search of Our Ancestors’ Gardens”, Binta Diaw shapes little heaps of
soil, following the model of an old 18-century slave ship map, in order to give form to the installation Chorus
of Soil.
Photo-credits: Olga Michahelles
Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio
+390236554554 | info@giampaoloabbondio.com | www.giampaoloabbondio.com | www.artsy.net/giampaoloabbondioGalleria Giampaolo Abbondio
Durante l’allestimento della mostra “In Search of Our Ancestors’ Gardens”, Binta Diaw plasma piccoli
mucchi di terra, seguendo il modello di un’antica mappa ottocentesca di una nave negriera, per dare
forma all’installazione Chorus of Soil.
During the setting-up of her show “In Search of Our Ancestors’ Gardens”, Binta Diaw shapes little heaps of
soil, following the model of an old 18-century slave ship map, in order to give form to the installation Chorus
of Soil.
Photo-credits: Olga Michahelles
Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio
+390236554554 | info@giampaoloabbondio.com | www.giampaoloabbondio.com | www.artsy.net/giampaoloabbondioGalleria Giampaolo Abbondio
Un’antica mappa ottocentesca di una nave negriera trovata dall’artista durante le sue ricerche. Binta
Diaw ha tratto ispirazione dal disegno per creare Chorus of Soil, riproducendo la mappa su larga scala
con della terra e piantandovi germogli di piante di melone.
An ancient 18th-century map of a slave ship found by the artist during her researches. Binta Diaw drew
inspiration from this drawing to create Chorus of Soil, reproducing the map on a large scale using soil
and planting melon buds in it.
Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio
+390236554554 | info@giampaoloabbondio.com | www.giampaoloabbondio.com | www.artsy.net/giampaoloabbondioGalleria Giampaolo Abbondio
Biography and CV
Binta Diaw (Milan, 1995) Binta Diaw is an Italian-Senegalese visual artist.
Her research focuses on the creation of installations of different sizes and works on social phenomena such as
migration, contemporary and still colonial narratives, anthropological and social aspects in the European context,
the relationship of the body to nature and the complexity of its identity.
She studied Fine Arts at Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan and Grenoble at the École d’art et de design
de Grenoble-Valence, in France, where she obtained the DNSEP (master).
During her first year of her Master’s degree, she moved to Berlin for a four-month internship at Savvy Contemporary,
an art and research space focused on dialogue and exchange between different non-Eurocentric art mediums.
Over the past two years, she has developed her research through an intersectional feminist methodology based
on physical and personal experience: herself, as a social body and her position as a 2nd generation black woman
(born in Italy to Senegalese parents).
First a sculptor, she started sculpting because it is the best way for her to communicate with people her views,
her social report as a black and Italian woman.
She is interested in learning more about people’s feelings when they look at her artwork, in the hope of giving
them the opportunity to reflect and deconstruct reality. She uses different methods to make her works, such as
moulding or assembling and cutting her materials. In Binta Diaw’s art, the materiality of the subject is very
important. She prefers natural and symbolic materials. In general, paying attention to this aspect can be a way to
understand her works.
Exhibitions and Participations
2020
- YGBI Research Residency Ontario College of Art and Design, Florence, Italy
- Participation to the project “Seeds for future memory”, Villa Romana, Florence, Italy
2019
- Workshop “Q-rated Napoli”, Quadriennale di Roma, Rome, Italy
- Group Show “Soil is an inscribed body”, Savvy Contemporary, Berlin, Germany
- Group Show “Artefici del nostro tempo”, Centro culturale Candiani, Venice, Italy
- Finalist at the Premio Nocivelli, Verolanuova (BS), Italy
2018
- Workshops with the artists Daniela Ortiz and Gaëlle Choisne between Grenoble and Paris (Fondation Kadist and Musée MACVAL)
through the platform “Pratiques d’Hospitalité” by Simone Frangi and Katia Schneller at the École d’art et de design de Grenoble-Valence,
Grenoble, France
- Internship at Savvy Contemporary, Berlin, Germany
- Internship at Archive Books, Berlin, Germany
- Collaboration with the artist Satch Hoyt in the project “Cleopatra’s chariot”
- Live performance with the artists Ibrahim Quraishi and Olani Ewunnet, Galerie Wedding, Berlin, Germany
2017
- Group Show “La Bellezza resta- Farfalle”, Associazione Heart à Vimercate (MI), Italy
2015
- Group Show “Ricordando il futuro”, Palazzo Grimani, Venice, Italy
- Sculpture workshop “Codice Italia” directed by Nino Longobardi, 56th Venice biennale, Venice, Italy
- Group Show “Artisti all’opera”, Fonderia artistica M.A.F, Pioltello (MI), Italy
- Participation to “L’arte che non sembra: anche colorare è un modo per creare”, La Lettura-Il Corriere, Milan, Italy
- Participation to the Festival internazionale dei depuratori- Depur art in atto, Milan, Italy
2013
- Internship in Fashion Design at Pino Grasso-Ricami di alta moda, Milan, Italy
Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio
+390236554554 | info@giampaoloabbondio.com | www.giampaoloabbondio.com | www.artsy.net/giampaoloabbondioPuoi anche leggere
