Nebula

Fondazione In Between Art Film is pleased to present Nebula, a new group exhibition opening to the public on April 17, 2024, at the Complesso dell'Ospedaletto in Venice on the occasion of the 60th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia.
Curated by Alessandro Rabottini and Leonardo Bigazzi—respectively artistic director and curator at the Fondazione—Nebula features eight new site-specific video installations commissioned to Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme (1983, Cyprus/1983, U.S.A.), Giorgio Andreotta Calò (1979, Italy), Saodat Ismailova (1981, Uzbekistan), Cinthia Marcelle and Tiago Mata Machado (1974, Brazil/1973, Brazil), Diego Marcon (1985, Italy), Basir Mahmood (1985, Pakistan/Netherlands), Ari Benjamin Meyers (1972, U.S.A.), and Christian Nyampeta. All eight works are commissioned and produced by Fondazione In Between Art Film, the institution conceived by Beatrice Bulgari to promote the culture of moving images and support international artists, museums and theorists that explore the dialogue between disciplines and time-based media.

The exhibition concept of Nebula, the Latin word for "cloud" or "fog," is inspired by the phenomenon of fog as a material and metaphorical space where visual orientation is reduced, and different sensorial tools are required to produce and situate our understanding of what surrounds us. Nebula is the second chapter of a series of exhibitions organized by the Fondazione in Venice that began with Penumbra in 2022 and that explores the current state of moving images in the field of contemporary art. The Fondazione returns to the Complesso dell'Ospedaletto, whose spaces are transformed into a sensory architecture that includes the church of Santa Maria dei Derelitti, the helicoidal stairs, the frescoed concert room and the old pharmacy, as well as a wing of the modern care home, unveiled to the public for the first time. Developed over the course of two years, the exhibition makes explicit the methodology of the Fondazione in commissioning and producing moving images works, one that nurtures long-lasting relationships of curatorial and production support to the artists.

Beatrice Bulgari, President of Fondazione In Between Art Film,
said: "It is an honor for us to return to Venice and the Complesso dell'Ospedaletto after the success of Penumbra. It is also an opportunity to broaden our ongoing reflection on the role that moving images can have in our society as a creative means of expression. If Penumbra looked at semi-darkness as the threshold between light and obscurity, Nebula goes beyond this dichotomy and, by deploying the expansive metaphor
of the fog, tells us about the possibilities that art offers to find new existential coordinates within our otherwise disorientating times. We are pleased to share with the international audience of the Biennale the works of the artists who have accompanied us on this journey where time is so opaque and hard to navigate."
The works in Nebula embrace forms of psychological, socio-political, technological, and historical fragmentation, suggesting possible ways of navigation through a present crossed by elements that, like fog, feel both immaterial and insurmountable. The works touch upon a range of themes: the vastness of the landscape as the site of either
loss or salvation; the architecture of memory, and the labyrinth of consciousness; music and voice as conduits of reclamation. They explore further forms of fragmentation: the tension between being and disappearing, and between living together and estrangement; the reverberation of History within individual lives; and the impact of economic and political forces on the environment and on people's lives.

In their roles of curators of the exhibition, Alessandro Rabottini and Leonardo Bigazzi said: "It was once again Venice that offered us the inspiration to contextualise eight newly commissioned video installations by international artists. In Venice, fog is the liminal space in which water and sky merge with each other and light becomes a diffuse and mysterious presence. It is a meteorological phenomenon that proves how fallacious our sense of perspective and understanding can be. Arranged as an orchestration of images and sounds in the space, Nebula explores the original concept of disorientation through a myriad of meanings while expanding the notions of film and video by taking
on sculptural forms and redefining the space through light and sound. The artists in Nebula have been invited to create their works in close structural, visual, and sonic dialogue with the spaces, with the intention to further deepen the narrative and spatial interaction between moving images and the architecture."

The interdisciplinary studio 2050+, founded by Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli, has designed scenographic and architectural interventions that reflect on the different visual, acoustic, tactile, and mental conditions of nebulosity, attempting to translate them into passages that absorb or amplify sound and light. Reacting to the artists' works, the architectural strategy enhances or obfuscates different senses for each installation, creating a porous and tactile space in which stories, images and voices extend beyond the confining dimensions of the rooms.