Video Sound Art is a production center and festival dedicated to contemporary art and expressive languages. Since its foundation in 2010, VSA, in collaboration with artists and international institutions, has focused its research on the language of complex installations, particularly video, creating exhibition paths that engage in dialogue with selected venues. Each year, the festival takes place in spaces inhabited by the community, with the aim of testing art’s ability to adapt within society. Throughout the year, Video Sound Art designs and curates exhibitions at foundations, museums, and international biennials, including Palazzo Grassi – Punta della Dogana, Manifesta Biennial, In Between Art Film, and the Centre National des Arts Plastiques.
The contemporary art festival in Milan, presents its 14th edition, titled Houses: Homes, scheduled from October 24th to 27th. The exhibition project will take place across the Lodi-Corvetto district of Milan. Historic shops, stores, and recreational clubs will be transformed into exhibition spaces, hosting video works and installations by Italian and international artists, along with a rich public program featuring roundtable discussions and performances.
The theme of the 14th edition is the house: from material aspects such as the right to housing and the ambiguous consequences of gentrification, which are especially relevant in the neighborhood hosting the festival, to symbolic issues like the sense of belonging to a community or its denial. The two sides of the coin, therefore, are “houses,” the architectural and material structure of the home, and “homes,” the symbolic and emotional aspect.
Thanks to the collaboration with the local committee — which includes businesses, residents, and associations — the art installations will be accessible at the venues during regular business hours, with some also open at night: the public will be able to view the works from the street by looking into shop windows, which will serve as stages for the artists’ works. The festival will organically integrate with other cultural and festive activities organized in the neighborhood by the Luigi Committee, particularly Di Studio in Studio, a program that showcases artists living and working in the area.
The artistic program presented by Video Sound Art will have Circolo San Luis as one of its main venues. Since 1946, the Circolo has been a point of reference for the diverse communities in an area emblematic of the radical transformation processes currently underway in Milan. Circolo San Luis will host the work of Iranian artist Arash Fayez, with an installation that interacts with elements of the space, including the bar counter, notice boards, and billiard table.
Continuing the festival’s tradition of collaborating with independent editorial platforms, this year Video Sound Art has chosen to partner with ArabPop, a magazine dedicated to contemporary arts and literature from Arab countries. The 14th edition will present a new installation inspired by issue 4 of the magazine, titled CASA (Home).
The exhibition route continues through the shops and commercial activities adjacent to Piazza San Luigi. Among the artists featured are Adele Dipasquale and Nicoletta Grillo, whose works will be displayed at the historic Bonvini1909 stationery and print shop; Jonathas de Andrade at the Eldodo bookstore; Daya Cahen at the bicycle repair shop La Stazione delle Biciclette; Mara Palena at the restaurant Sottobosco; and finally, the iconic video artwork Semiotics of the Kitchen by Martha Rosler at the Meraviglia Di Pane bakery.
Daya Cahen (1969, Netherlands) is a filmmaker and artist. Her research focuses on forms of political conditioning and the systematic manipulation of human beings. Her main interest lies in the power of mass media and its use in constructing and presenting forms of propaganda or indoctrination.
Jonathas de Andrade (1982, Brazil) creates videos, photographs, and installations based on the production of images and texts, employing strategies that blend fiction and reality. Drawing from the artist’s interest in social issues, his works explore language and anthropology as fields that challenge notions of truth, power, desire, and social imagination.
Adele Dipasquale (1994, Italy) is a visual artist living and working between Turin and The Hague, Netherlands. Working with various media such as moving images, film, vocal experiments, and writing, her artistic practice explores the politics of language.
Arash Fayez (1984, Iran) is currently based in Barcelona. The artist draws from his own biography to investigate the “liminal” condition that characterizes migrant and diasporic identities, exploring notions of displacement in relation to desire, statelessness, and the ambiguous relationship with the idea of home and an (im)possible return. Using various narrative strategies, his writings blend fiction and documentary to construct an emotional landscape aimed at exploring the experience of being between two places, two cultures, and two identities.
Nicoletta Grillo (1991, Italy) is an artist and researcher who attributes her documentary practices to a specific concept of “resonance,” wherein past events are reformulated in our present, and distant geographies intersect with personal realms. Her works often incorporate images and conversations, in either audio or textual form.
Mara Palena (1988, Italy) lives and works in Milan. Her research focuses on themes such as memory, remembrance, and identity. In her installations and mixed-media works, photography, sound, and video serve as the starting tools, which she then manipulates and alters to challenge the concepts of memory and individuality. Using archival material, she seeks to create a connection between the personal and the collective, between introspection and connection.
Martha Rosler (1943, New York) currently lives and works in Brooklyn. The artist works with video, photography, writing, installation, and performance. Her work focuses on the public sphere, exploring issues ranging from everyday life to media and architecture. Rosler has produced works for many years on war and national security, connecting the private dimension with sociopolitical events.
