The Torino Social Impact Art Award – organized by Artissima and Torino Social Impact and aimed at emerging talents with a multicultural and migratory background – continues with the announcement of the two winners of the residency competition: Caterina Erica Shanta (Germany, 1986) and Liryc Dela Cruz (Philippines, 1992).
The two young talents selected will have the opportunity to be in residence in Torino for one month to produce a new video work that involves reflections on the theme of “How Many Italies?”, the title and focus of this first edition of the Torino Social Impact Art Award. “How many Italies?” invites the young winners to contribute to the transformation of social perceptions on particularly urgent issues, examining life stories considered “distant” to investigate themes such as identity and cooperation, relying on their own multicultural background and personal, faceted and innovative viewpoints, through constant and productive interaction with the context and stimuli of the city of Torino.
During the residency – initially scheduled for the month of May and postponed to September due to the health emergency – the artists will stay at Combo, the hospitality partner of the project and an innovative format that combines the idea of lodging with artistic and cultural programming open to experimentation. The daily interaction with the heterogeneous community that inhabits and frequents the spaces of Combo, as well as the synergic proximity to Porta Palazzo – the largest market in Europe – will permit the artists in residence to constantly absorb new stimuli and inspirations.
Stimuli that will be enhanced by the visits organized by Artissima and Torino Social Impact to accompany the artists in the discovery of the city and its most significant artistic, cultural and social expressions. Artissima will also guide the artists in the development of their works, with specific processes of tutoring.
The shared focus on experimentation has led Artissima and Torino Social Impact to formulate the project with the aim of widening the boundaries of action of social innovation to contemporary art. Concentrating on the space of multiculturalism in today’s society, the initiative sets out to propose new relationships and to open unexpected scenarios through the languages and gazes of the winning artists.
THE WINNERS
Caterina Erica Shanta wins the Torino Social Impact Art Award with the project: Talking about visibility, for the following reasons:
“For the social impact of her proposal, based on horizontal dialogue and exchange of viewpoints. For the desire to question and focus on the imaginary of cinema of each of us, with the aim of giving rise to a project of collective cinema, involving several multi-ethnic communities of Torino and producing a work capable of conveying stories and narratives that shift from the personal to the social dimension.”
Born to an Italian mother and an American father, Caterina Erica Shanta has lived in various countries and been in contact with a range of different communities. Like other works recently made by the artist, Talking about visibility is a place of construction of identity, otherness and memory that places the accent on the act of recognition of self in a given imaginary, and on the visibility of that imaginary inside a common narrative.
Caterina Erica Shanta, self-portrait in the bear cage. Courtesy of the artist
Liryc Dela Cruz, a filmmaker from the Philippines, wins the Torino Social Impact Art Award with the project Il Mio Filippino: Invisible Bodies, Neglected Movements, for the following reasons:
“For the force of social investigation proposed, focusing on the documentation of the collective movement of migration, its perception, the forgotten labour force and social rejection. For the intention to put a silent, subterranean world at the centre of the research, inhabited by people who remain unobserved or overlooked, but who play a fundamental role in our society.”
As in other works thematically linked to his roots and history, the Filipino community of Torino will be the protagonist of the research. The artist, concentrating on the everyday life of domestic workers, sets out to produce a video with choreographic elements.
Liryc Dela Cruz, artist portrait. © Photo: Igor Volkov
