Spargete la voce

enrico floriddia, Elena Radice, Allison Grimaldi Donahue
Convento del Monte Mesma of Ameno, Spring 2024

Spargete la voce (spread the word/voice) is a project that stems from the urgency of having to share something said or read, but above all felt, experienced. Through the organization of moments of collective reading and translation designed specifically for the Ameno context, and from a series of conversations and games, the residency worked on a set of audio recordings in the form of podcasts, co-realized with a group of participants. From Ameno, voices spread from open and unheard places from where no one can usually hear us. Saying aloud is a performative act, a form of translation and a different mode of sharing in which the possibilities of speech are strengthened and multiplied by opening new interpretive horizons.
The project by enrico floriddia, Elena Radice, and Allison Grimaldi Donahue aims to connect many languages, timbres, each voice with its own fragrance, voices that meet and enchant each other.
For the presentation to the public, the recordings had been collected in a sound and vocal composition playing in the public park of Ameno.

Concept and realization: enrico floriddia, in collaboration with Elena Radice and Allison Grimaldi Donahue | The project had been previously supported by: Museion (Bolzano), Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo (Torino), School of Waters -BJCEM (Torino), Achterhaus (Amburgo), Impossible Library (Amburgo) MA*GA Museo Arte Gallarate (Milan), Ecole Supérieure d’Art Clermont Métropole – ESACM (Clermont-Ferrand), Iniziative di i (Roma), Trame di quartiere (Catania), Kunsthalle Exnergasse (Vienna).

BIO
The artistic practice of enrico floriddia tends toward the production of relational work. As an educator, he focuses on constructing situations that allow the common construction of different forms of knowledge, and as a worker in the artistic world he invites audiences and other artists to participate in idle contexts. His research is based on the use of books understood as a tool for the development of shared knowledge, principles of reciprocity and equity, through shared practices of reading and writing. His research traveled with the nomadic library Zines of the zone on a European tour in 2014. In 2017, it participated in the Trauma&Revival and ENGAGE programs. In 2018, it moved to Decolonizing Architecture, passing through School of Waters (Mediterranea Biennale, 2021). Since 2019, it has been residing at Coopérative de recherche (ESACM 2019-2023) and participating in Fully Funded Residencies. With Jérôme de Vienne, Ewa Sadowska, and Angeliki Tzortzakaki, floriddia organized bi- (2018-2022): “attempts at residencies that foster slackness and care.” Since 2020 floriddia has been building a pirate library through collective readings.

Allison Grimaldi Donahue is a poet and artist based in Bologna, Italy. She is the author of Body to Mineral (Publication Studio Vancouver 2016) and On Endings (Delere Press 2019) and translator of Carla Lonzi’s Self-portrait (Divided 2021). She has recently made performances at Short Theatre and Kunsthalle Bern. In her practice she organizes translation and collective writing groups for the production of heterogeneous and multiple texts using participatory writing methods to build community.

Elena Radice lives, works and practices in Milan. Her projects cross different media, inspired by a strong interest in open and dialogic aesthetic forms, deeply influenced by the dynamics of the Internet and the attention economy. He has been able to share them with an audience through performance practices, installations and workshops, at different institutions such as Fondazione Baruchello (2019), Istituto Svizzero di Milano (2020), BACO (2020), Quadriennale di Roma (2021), Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo (2022). Since 2018, he has been a lecturer at audiovisual-oriented high schools.

Ph. credits Paolo Sacchi, Sara Cattin, enrico floriddia