Irene Coppola began her artistic research on the southeast coast of Palermo in 2017 in collaboration with the Eco-Museo Mare Memoria Viva. Since then, she has rediscovered unfinished and apparently abandoned places such as the Romagnolo seafront and the amphitheatre in Acqua dei Corsari called ‘Teatro del Sole’. She began to familiarise herself with the materials that had been abandoned as rubbish on the coast for decades and that now, in layers, reflect the neighbourhood’s history and the urban disaster caused by abusive housing construction and speculation known as “Sacco di Palermo”. During her walks on this negated beach, she made unexpected encounters with people who use this seemingly uninhabited place: sunbathing, training horses, playing cards, making bonfires or even film screenings.
For Between Land and Sea, Irene Coppola builds a modular sculpture made of the firework discards that she found on the beach and recalls the local ways to celebrate collective events of different types. On the hill, the so-called “Mammelloni” behind the Ecomuseo, the sculpture FIRE-WORKS becomes an improvised meeting place during the festival. The social platform will host an assembly on Sunday evening, where Coppola will present and discuss the interim results of her study with the inhabitants of the area, the citizens of Palermo, local experts and the international audience.
She will introduce her first cinematographic work MAMMELLONI in co-direction with the filmmaker Ruben Monterosso. The 20 minutes roughcut provides an idea of what will become a documentary film of the main coast of Palermo through its inhabitants.
The event will be the occasion to launch the crowdfunding campaign to enable the duo to make the feature film.
Artist: Irene Coppola / Film directors: Irene Coppola, Ruben Monterosso / Curation: Eva-Maria Bertschy
Production: Letizia Gullo
In collaboration with Ecomuseo Mare Memoria Viva
With the support of:
