WORKSHOP CON ALICE CREISCHER E ANDREAS SIEKMANN

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Sale Docks, Dorsoduro 265, Venezia

23-24-25 MAGGIO 2025

Quali sono i temi del workshop? Parleremo di pittura veneziana e esploreremo gli archivi delle lotte operaie contro la nocività. L'obiettivo è la produzione di cartoline e poster per una contro-narrazione turistica.

Nel workshop analizzeremo diversi dipinti (dal XVI al XVIII sec.) selezionati da Creischer e Siekmann. Collegheremo queste opere storiche al presente e all’inquinamento della laguna, in particolare a quello legato all'industria petrolchimica. Ricostruiremo la storia del processo contro Eni e Montedison, reso possibile solo grazie all'impegno dell’operaio Gabriele Bortolozzo. 

Fondamentali furono anche le lotte operaie dell'Assemblea Autonoma di Porto Marghera, di cui Augusto Finzi era membro, e l’impegno dell’ex partigiano e uomo politico, Cesco Chinello.Gli archivi di Gabriele Bortolozzo e Augusto Finzi sono oggi consultabili presso la biblioteca comunale di Porto Marghera, mentre l'archivio di Cesco Chinello è conservato presso il Centro di Ricerca IVESER a Venezia.  Ancora oggi, l'avvelenamento e l’inquinamento sono tra le ingiustizie vissute dalla popolazione e da tutta la Laguna, aggravate dalle navi da crociera e dal sovraffollamento turistico di Venezia.

Sul versante artistico esistono numerosi motivi nella pittura veneziana che testimoniano un profondo legame (coabitazione) tra natura non umana ed esseri umani. Metteremo in relazione questi motivi pittorici con le foto e i documenti presenti nei diversi archivi.

L’obiettivo è creare un portfolio di collage che verrà poi trasformato in “cartoline alternative”.

PROGRAMMA

Venerdì 23 maggio

SALE Docks, h. 17.00-20.00

Introduzione al workshop con Alice Creischer, Andreas Siekmann e Sale Docks.Come si collega la pittura veneziana del XVI secolo alle lotte operaie contro la nocività e alle attuali lotte contro l'estrattivismo nella Laguna di Venezia?

Con un intervento di Anda Pleniceanu a proposito della relazione tra pittura informale veneta e crisi ambientali e sociali nell’antropocene - Un progetto sviluppato con l’Ecological Art Practices research cluster al THE NEW INSTITUTE Centre for Environmental Humanities (NICHE). 

Sabato 24 maggio

IVESER (Istituto Veneziano per la Storia della Resistenza), h. 10.00-12.00

Esplorazione dell'Archivio Cesco Chinello con Stefano Micheletti (attivista ambientale), Alice Creischer, Andreas Siekmann e Sale Docks.

Biblioteca comunale di Porto Marghera, h. 15.00-17.00

Esplorazione dell'Archivio Augusto Finzi con Lorenzo Fe (ricercatore, Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia).

Domenica 25 maggio, dalle h. 11.00 in poi

Workshop di collage e produzione di cartoline presso SALE Docks.

WORKSHOP WITH ALICE CREISCHER AND ANDREAS SIEKMANN

Sale Docks, Dorsoduro 265, Venezia

MAY 23-24-25, 2025

A workshop in Venice and Porto Marghera together with Alice Creischer, Andrea Siekmann and Sale Docks. What is the workshop about? About Venetian painting and the archives of workers' struggles against noxiousness. The aim is the production of postcards and posters that can be seen as a tourist counter-narrative. In the workshop we will talk about various paintings from the 16th to 18th century that particularly fascinate the artists. We will combine these paintings with the history and present of the pollution of the lagoon - particularly by the petrochemical industry. A trial was held against the Eni and Montedison companies, which was only possible thanks to the active research  and engagement of Gabriele Bortolozzo.The trial ended in 2001 with an acquittal for the managers and this acquittal was confirmed on appeal in 2004.

Crucial were also the workers' struggles of the Assemblea Autonoma di Porto Marghera, of which Augusto Finzi was a member, and the engagement of the former partisan and politician Cesco Chinello.  

The Gabriele Bortolozzo and Augusto Finzi archives can be viewed today at the municipal library in Porto Marghera, while the Cesco Chienllo archive is preserved at the IVESER Research Center in Venice. To this day, the poisoning and the trial are among the injustices experienced by the population, which continue to be perpetuated by the precarious state of the lagoon, the air, the cruise ships and the over-tourism in Venice.On the other hand, there are numerous motifs in Venetian painting that bear witness to a deep connection (cohabitation) between nature and people. We will relate motifs from these paintings to the photos and documents in the different archives.The aim is to create a collage portfolio that we will later turn into prints of "alternative postcards".

 PROGRAM

 Friday, May 23

SALE Docks h. 17.00-20.00

Introduction to the workshop with Alice Creischer, Andreas Siekmann and Sale Docks.

How does 16th century Venetian painting relate to workers' struggles against noxiousness and current struggles against extractivism in the Venice Lagoon?

With an intervention by dr. Anda Pleniceanu about Venetian Informalism as related to environmental and social crises in the Anthropocene –a project being developed in collaboration with the Ecological Art Practices research cluster at THE NEW INSTITUTE Centre for Environmental Humanities (NICHE).

Saturday, May 24

IVESER (Istituto Veneziano per la Storia della Resistenza), h. 10.00-12.00

Exploration of the Cesco Chinello Archive with Stefano Micheletti (environmental activist), Alice Creischer, Andreas Siekmann and Sale Dock

Porto Marghera municipal library h. 15.00-17.00

Exploration of The Augusto Finzi Archive with Lorenzo Fe (research fellow, Ca'Foscari University Of Venice)

Sunday, May 24, h.11.00 onwards

Sale Docks

Collage and cards production workshop at SALE Docks

BIO

Alice Creischer studied philosophy and literature at the University of Düsseldorf and fine arts at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. She was a master student of Fritz Schwegler in 1987/88. In her works, Creischer mainly deals with topics such as economy and money, power and powerlessness, as well as poverty and wealth. She also dealt with art theoretically, publishing in the magazines springerin, Texte zur Kunst and ANYP. In 2002 Alice Creischer curated the exhibition Gewalt ist der Rand aller Dinge / Violence on the Margin of All Things at the Generali Foundation in Vienna together with Andreas Siekmann. In 2006 she received the Norwegian Edward Munch Prize for Contemporary Art. A member of the jury was Roger Buergel, who invited Creischer to documenta 12 the following year. In 2010, Creischer curated the exhibition The Potosí Principle - How can we sing the song of the Lord in an alien land? for the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, together with Andreas Siekmann and Max Jorge Hinderer. The controversial exhibition was the first to show paintings from the Potosi School of Painting in a museum context, confronting the works from colonial Latin America of the 17th and 18th centuries with positions of contemporary artists such as Stephan Dillemuth and Chto Delat. The exhibition, which was subsequently shown at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin as well as at the Museo Nacional de Arte and the MUSEF in La Paz, developed its own exhibition grammar: in order to escape the museum's de-contextualization, the aestheticization by the "white cube", no picture was hung on the wall in the traditional way - instead, the curators developed their own system of installation. The "Potosi Principle" makes the claim that modernity and globalization were born in Latin America - and were already inextricably linked to colonial oppression and exploitation in the silver mines of Potosí. Creischer lives and works in Berlin and Buenos Aires.

Andreas Siekmann studied at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. In 2007 he took part in documenta 12 and thus for the second time after 2002 (documenta 11) in a documenta in Kassel, among others with the work Die Exklusive - Zur Politik des ausgeschlossenen Vierten. In 2007, at the Münster Skulptur.Projekte, he thematized with Trickle down. Der öffentliche Raum im Zeitalter seiner Privatisierung (Public Space in the Age of Privatization), he addressed urban art in the form of Buddy Bears and similar figures, in which urban space is appropriated by private companies. For this he crushed 13 figures with the help of a scrap metal press and placed a sphere formed from the remains together with the press in front of the Erbdrostenhof. Together with the artist Alice Creischer, Siekmann realized curatorial projects such Das Potosi Prinzip, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (2010), Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Museo Nacional de Arte, La Paz, (2011); Exargentina – Schritte zur Flucht von der Arbeit zum Tun, Museum Ludwig Cologne (2004), Palais de Glace Buenos Aires (2006); Die Gewalt ist der Rand aller Dinge, Generali Foundation (2002) in Vienna. Andreas Siekmann lives and works in Berlin. In his works he deals with the economization and privatization of public urban space. His works are in the tradition of the Cologne Progressives.

Ada Pleniceanu: Postdoctoral Researcher at (Post)Authoritarian Landscapes Research Centre, Vilnius University

Lorenzo Feltrin is a Marie Curie Global Fellow at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice’s Department of Humanities, and a Visiting Fellow at the Geneva Graduate Institute’s Department of Anthropology and Sociology. His research interests are in the areas of labour, social movements, and political ecology. His current project relates to the political economy of phosphate and the history of labour and environmental conflicts in Porto Marghera, Venice.

Stefano Micheletti is an environmental activist, member of the No Grandi Navi Committee and Ambiente Venezia.