The Ground Tour

Curated by Enrico Tomassini

The “Ground Tour” is a journey starting in Vienna, cruising the outskirts of Rome, touching ground in Prato and Florence on our way to the undepths of the Venice Lagoon. The tour will grind much too common assumptions about Italy’s beauty and culture and will bring onto surface a different portrayal of a country as it is acting at the edges of mainstream society.

People on roof top, looking over city Rome

Photos by Sebastian Kraner

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An old factory building, on the roof spelling the word fart in big letters

Metropoliz, Rome

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Girl sitting on a staircase inside a building

Metropoliz, Rome

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people standing on a square, sunshine

Metropoliz, Rome

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Three people standing in a museum, one explaining something

MAAM, Rome

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A crowd of people in front of a wall

-ATI Suffix, Rome

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People discusssing, laughing, graffiti in the background

-ATI Suffix, Rome

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A man drawing on paper on the floor

-ATI Suffix, Rome

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A dog looking outside a window

Quarticciolo, Rome

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Moreover, the journey evocatively recalls the historical „Grand Tour“ of the period of Enlightenment which aimed to educate and open horizons to a privileged class of people which nevertheless tried to contribute to human progress and learn from the experience of travelling.

A dark street, a person with an umbrella

Prato, Photo: Sebastian Kraner

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A dog on a Gas station

Prato, Photo: Michel Götz

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Little boy in shop window

Prato, Photo: Sebastian Kraner

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A truck selling fruit and vegetables on the street

Prato, Photo: Sebastian Kraner

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A view on tuscan hills

Florence, Photo: Sebastian Kraner

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A group discussing over a big sheet of paper

Florence, Photo: Que Chi Trinh

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The “Ground Tour” has the intent to connect with projects and bottom-up- actions if not new social movements where arts and radical forms of politics go hand in hand, where contemporary practices get in necessary conflict with the load of Italy’s built heritage to eventually give birth to unexpected futures and new solutions in a society with urgent needs and high potentials of conflict.

A group at a public lecture

Biennale Session, Venice. Photo: Sebastian Kraner

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Three women on a panel

Biennale Session, Venice. Photo: Sebastian Kraner

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Many lamps hanging into a room

Biennale, Venice

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On the “Ground Tour” contacts and networks among artists, activists and institutions will be enforced and created. Social change is only possible in networks and across given national borders! 

Download the complete programme here!

The Ground Tour collaborators:

-ATI Suffix
LAC_Laboratorio Arti Civiche
MAAM_Museo dell’Altro e dell’Altrove
Metropoliz
Red Lab
Francesco D’Isa
Public Art Collective Spazi Docili
Ark Kostruendo
Three Faces
MEP_Movimento per l’Emancipazione della Poesia
La Polveriera
Fondazione Giovanni Michelucci
Associazione Culturale [chì-na]
Biennale Architettura 2016
Massimo Bricocoli / Stefania Sabatinelli
Isin Önol
Gerald Bast 
Christina Schraml 

Time
Winter Term 2016
Location
Rome
Florence
Prato
Venice
Team
Curated by Enrico Tomassini
Assitance by Brigitte Felderer. Visual Mapping: Alessia Scuderi supported by Laschandrè Coetzee