The first Autumn workshop took place from November to December 2022 with the participation of visual artist and environmental engineer Andrea Conte – known as Andreco – specialized in environmental sustainability and resource management in challenging climatic conditions. Bringing the inspiration of his multidisciplinary project Climate Art Project, he guided the young participants in designing the first artwork of the Rural Artistic Park: THE GREEN CLASSROOMS – two concentric circles of new plants forming a green theater, a place for gathering, socializing, ecological and cultural training.

During the workshops, managed by the project partner Pigment Workroom, the fundamental stages of creating a work of art were studied: analysis of history, ecosystem, problems, needs, and resources of the site; study of the meaning, significance, and feasibility of the work; communication and interaction with the public. The young participants were then actively involved in site surveys and in imagining the artistic installations in relation to XFarm’s spaces, materials, and resources, gathering ideas and data in a psycho-map.

Starting with an in-depth exploration of land art, public art, and ‘Nature as Art’ as a reflection on the relationship between the environment, humans, art, and politics, three main lines of work were identified, alternating theoretical and practical activities: education to legality and anti-mafia, and regeneration of a confiscated property; agroecology and permaculture; project design and communication.

• Seed Bomb Making Workshop

The participants learned to make seed bombs (read here what seed bombs are) using soil, seeds, straw, and compost taken from XFarm’s land, then launched them in a series of green areas identified by the Municipality of San Vito dei Normanni with the goal of making the city greener, more beautiful, and welcoming.

• Communication Workshop

The young participants were guided in the creation and realization of multimedia content to promote the public planting event of the Green Classroom and the launch of the seed bombs. The group then created a promotional video for social media channels, identifying slogans and using the San Vito dialect as a tool to engage their peers (watch it here!). Finally, studying visual communication in collaboration with Immagina, they designed two posters to communicate the birth of the Rural Artistic Park to the local and broader XFarm community.

Autumn concluded with the planting of the Green Classroom in a public event open to the local community.

WINTER LAB | MANIFESTO FLAGS

The two ‘Manifesto’ flags placed at the center of the Green Classrooms were designed and created during the second Winter workshop, from January 2022 to March 2023, entirely using recycled and recovered materials.

The color pattern consists of a series of symbols created and drawn by the young participants, transferred onto stickers applied to recycled nautical fabric, thanks to the collaboration with the Centro Velico di Torre Guaceto. The group first created a Manifesto for the Rural Artistic Park, identifying its core values: creativity, determination, experience, humans with nature, light-heartedness, freedom, revolution, history. The young people were then involved in imagining and creating the symbols, which were used to design the pattern on the two flags raised at the center of the Green Classrooms. The flagpoles were made from two decommissioned sailboat masts.

During the public event for the inauguration of the Green Classrooms, these same symbols were then transformed into molds used to print smaller flags, distributed to participants to bring to life an Environmental Parade within the spaces of XFarm.

THE SCASCIATA

The Scasciata is a work imagined by the young people of San Vito dei Normanni during the first site visits in November 2022. While exploring XFarm’s spaces, the group found a semi-destroyed and burned car, buried in vegetation in an area of the farm that had been used, before the confiscation, as a dumping ground and was intended to become a new intensive olive grove. After some research into the vehicle’s history, the young participants discovered it was likely once used for smuggling and other illicit activities. They immediately expressed their desire not to dispose of the car, but instead to transform such a negative symbol of illegality and environmental exploitation into a work of art representative of the Rural Artistic Park and the transformation of the confiscated property into a Common Good – titled ‘Scasciata,’ meaning ‘broken’ in San Vito dialect.
The car was placed at the top of a mound of earth in the center of the Park, adorned with the naturally occurring stones in the soil, treated with anti-rust, and painted with luminescent paint. Inside the vehicle, a Bagolaro tree was planted. The Bagolaro, also known as ‘Spaccasassi’ (rock breaker), is capable of surviving even in rocky and arid soils due to its deep and resilient root system. The Bagolaro thus represents the natural world reclaiming space, transforming the anthropogenic element into a symbol of unity and belonging for humans within the entire natural ecosystem.

‘Fan’Arti’ is the work created during the third Spring workshop, from April to May 2023, starting with the study of the iconography of Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Vitruvian Man,’ both as a symbol of the union between art and science and, more importantly, as a representation of the anthropocentric view that places Man at the center of the entire Cosmos, detached from the rest of the natural world.
By deconstructing Leonardo’s work, the young participants identified the need to bring back to the center of the image those plant and mineral elements that are considered of lesser importance and are more often the target of human destructive actions. Studying the shapes and geometric figures of the original drawing, the group maintained the circle as a representation of the harmony of the Universe, but instead of a human figure at the center, they placed a symbolic composition of stones that could also serve as a seating area.
The drawn geometries were used as guidelines to organize the space, pathways, and accessibility of the work, maximizing water absorption and retention. Particular attention was given to the ecological study of the landscape, encouraging the young participants to reflect on the complexity of the ecosystems in which we operate. The group chose materials that could be recovered from within the agricultural property – stones, wood, plants – evaluating both their practical functionality and symbolic significance.
The final work consists of abiotic structures made of elevations, depressions, and soil coverage with various materials, designed to generate a spontaneous response from the vegetation that will react differently depending on the seasons. The name ‘Fan’Arti’ was chosen by the young participants, as it is a term from the San Vito dialect with a double meaning: ‘doing nothing’ and ‘making art.’ The name represents the artistic action of transforming the land, but also invites visitors to stop at the center of the work to contemplate the natural ecosystem and become aware of our place within it.

Grande Specchia is a sculpture approximately five meters high, made from an accumulation of stones of various sizes, a crown of iron, and olive branches, designed by artist Andrea Conte of Studio Andreco.

The sculpture has a circular base and stands tall thanks to the dry stone wall technique, resembling a megalithic architecture in the shape of a pyramid with a circular base and a pointed rock at its tip. The large accumulation of stones at the top is surrounded by a crown made of intertwined iron wires, created by the young people of San Vito dei Normanni during the final workshop ‘Summer’ from June to July 2023. Some dry olive branches from pruning were arranged in a circular pattern at the base of the sculpture.

Like a symbolic recombination of the elements of the place, the artwork was entirely made with materials found on site, giving solemnity and strength to elements that are typically overlooked, such as agricultural waste and land reclamation remnants. The work is also a tribute to the “Specchie,” ancient stone mounds whose origins are debated by archaeologists and historians: for some, they were lookout points in the plains to elevate the viewpoint and look afar; for others, the result of agricultural land reclamation; and for others still, sacred and magical structures. Grande Specchia is ultimately a tribute to rural knowledge, to the “organic intellectual” (from Gramsci) who passes on the knowledge of megalithic architecture. The work brings attention to the geology of the earth, aiming to shift the observer’s perspective from an anthropocentric to an ecocentric viewpoint, highlighting rocks as central elements from both an aesthetic and ethical-political standpoint. Grande Specchia is this and much more—the artist intends to leave part of the sculpture’s meaning mysterious, just like the Specchie. The work is open to the free interpretation of those who observe it.