Pisciott'Arte 2024: The Artistic Residencies with International Guests are starting: 'We don't just want to organize a festival to liven up the town, but we want a town that livens up a festival'
The third edition of Pisciott'Arte has started, and for a few weeks the artistic residencies that have hosted a Pisciotta three internationally renowned artists: the Croatian videomaker, screenwriter and documentary maker Hrvoslava Brkusic, the Slovenian photographer Borut Bucinel and the Basque artist Juan Aizpitarte. Together with the Cilentan artists Giovanni Tortora and Paolo Puglia, and the artistic director, the American-Swedish Chris Torch, they are preparing the program and the shows that will be staged in Pisciotta from 3 to 9 June 2024.
Yes, because Pisciott'Arte is not a hasty festival, but is the harvest of a sowing started in the first months of 2024 with the InResidenza project, a storytelling experiment that involves artists, immerses them in the territory and builds the shows through meetings and workshops.
“Well, when we talk about tourism and development, we often focus only on the big ones institutional events,, neglecting the true essence of this territory, with its slow rhythms, the phenomenon of depopulation and the picturesque medieval villages”, comments the artistic director, Chris Torch. “We see it as something to fill with attractive events, capable of attracting tourists for a short time, without delving into the local reality. We asked ourselves: is this the only path open to us? What is the fate of small towns? Does their hope lie only in mass tourism?”
From these reflections, still imbued with the aftermath of the pandemic, Pisciott'Arte was born in 2021, an initiative that proposes the meeting between art and culture to outline a new path.
“We involved international artists and invited them to Pisciotta, looking for a connection that goes beyond hit-and-run tourism: a connection that winds through the streets of the town, in the meeting with the residents, with the workers and the artisans' workshops locals. Our goal – concludes the artistic director – is to tell this small Cilento town from a different perspective. We didn't just want to organize a festival to liven up the country, but we wanted a country that would liven up a festival."
And so, between April and May, the program of the third edition of Pisciott'Arte takes shape through meetings between international and local artists during artistic residencies, transforming Pisciotta into a center of cultural intimacy. Together, we prepare the program for the festival to be held in June.
Borut and Hrvoslava, as soon as they arrived in Pisciotta, immediately started their “My Story” workshop, a project with which they travel the world making documentaries on football, produced by UEFA. After stopping in Burkina Faso and Palestine and having shot a documentary on the role of football in these lands, they arrived in Pisciotta to tell the story of the exploits of ASD Atletico Pisciotta and ASD Pisciotta Calcio. Their work will go beyond the matches and training sessions, also exploring the human stories of the players and clubs involved. Every evening at 20pm, Borut and Hrvoslava meet the footballers at the town bar, a consolidated event where the bar becomes the crossroads between football stories and life stories. Players will have the opportunity to share their experiences, their struggles and their victories, as well as defeats. The final product, “My Story – Pisciotta Calcio e Comunità”, will be screened during Pisciott'Arte on 00 June.
In the same weeks, Juan Aizpitarte and the Cilento artist Giovanni Tortora started the "Art Walk Lab" laboratory aimed at creating an artistic intervention that will use the facade of an old building as a canvas to paint a collective and community work.
Not only art and cinema, Pisciott'Arte also includes theater with the "Theatre Walk Lab" coordinated by Paolo Puglia, a theatrical laboratory aimed at creating a performance that will animate the "Spirits of the Villages", imaginary characters who could embody the traits , the stories and life dynamics of the residents, which will be staged during the June festival.
The program and shows are under construction, we have no idea what will happen; we only have the dates from June 3rd to 9th. We can't wait to share the Pisciott'Arte 2024 experience with all of you.
