MiBACT special mention to DC for Two Calls for Vajont

On Sunday, March the 14^th, National Landscape Day, Mibact announced the names of the winning project, as well as those having received a special mention, in the context of the National Landscape Award/European Council Landscape Award.

A special mention was awarded to the International Artistic Contest Two Calls for Vajont, created and devloped by Dolomiti Contemporanee on the Vajont Dam and the Nuovo Spazio di Casso since 2014.
The mention goes to the Erto e Casso Municipality, who sponsors Two Call‘s first phase.

In 2020, with Two Calls_restart, it was relaunched.

Its participation to the Award is consistent with the drive behind the projects curated by DC that, ever since 20111, has been devloping a comprehensive reflection in the field of regeneration and care of both Landscape and Heritage, through the tools of contemporary art, innovation culture, good practices and invested networks, keeping at the core of its practice a re-innovative and regenerative vision of the territory and of praxis themselves.

The 2020/2021 edition of the Award

The Commission established by the Ministry, chaired by Federica Galloni, General Director ABAP of MiBACT is comprised of individuals known for their efforts in the field of culture and landscape: Rocco Rosario Tramutola, Giorgio Andrian, Roberto Banchini, Giuseppe Barbera, Anna Lambertini, Lionella Scazzosi, Angioletta Voghera e Antonio Angelillo.

The participating projects were ninety-six.

In light of the activities put into action, in regard to the objectives reached in the re-development of locations through the promotion of all the historic and cultural, tangible and intangible, components which characterise them, and considering the results obtained in terms of sustainable economic development, as well as cultural and civic growth of local communities.

The winning project was “Biodiversity in the city: Bergamo’s Val d’Astino”

10 other projects have received a Special Mention, among which is Two Calls.

This was the motivation given by Mibact:

The Commissions established for the evaluation of the projects for the selection of the Italian nomination for the European Council Landscape Award 2020-2021 has unanimously expressed a keen interest in the “Two Calls for Vajont” project, which was deemed worthy in light of its ability to navigate the need to respect the tragedy of the dam and the will to overcome it, expressing great awareness and sensibility while on the path to reinterpretation for the location, as well as its return to contemporaneity.

The European Council Landscape Award

The European Landscape Convention was signed in Florence in the year 2000.
Ever since then, MiBACT has undertaken a series of policies aimed for the safeguard, the preservation and promotion of the Italian landscape.
The European Council Landscape Award, given out every two years, has had its first edition in 2008.
The activity was carried out by the Ministry with the knowledge of the initiative’s strategic potential, as an important occasion directed at the world of culture, and at all those individuals who operate in the field of land management, for the promotion and divulgation of values linked to the landscape.
Some advisors were then established, and several contacts for the survey of exemplary actions performed on the Italian region were activated, among which the idea of pinpointing a nominated project for Italy.
All projects that are received represent a testimony of exemplary actions realised on the Italian territory through sustainable policies of safeguard, promotion and development. The entirety of these projects constitutes an important data bank for the Ministry, documenting the various forms that landscape culture takes in the Italian context, experimenting diversified approaches and operative courses linked to cultures and local memories.

Dolomiti Contemporanee‘s nomination with Two Calls: project abstract submitted.

Two Calls for Vajont is an International Contest, launched in 2014 by Dolomiti Contemporanee (DC), which will lead to the creation of two contemporary art projects on two locations that are symbols of the Vajont Tragedy: the Dam and the former school of Casso which, ever since 2012, DC has transformed into the “Nuovo Spazio di Casso”, a “Centre for Contemporary Landscape Culture”. The objective was that of sparking action which refused the commemorative logic linked to the tragic event of 1963, interpreting the Vajont as a “space of meaning for the human being”, one in which they might show themselves to be capable, thanks to the re-innovative vision proposed by the contemporary and shared by local cumminuties, aimed to reclaim their land, as well.
During the selection phase (2015), more than 180 art projects have been submitted from all over the world. They rethink the Dam and the former School, making them into symbols of a rebirth possible for a land that shows promiment historic and landscape values.
Dozens of public and private partners have been involved, sponsoring the initiative (among them: the Environment Ministry, Dolomiti Unesco Foundation, Friuli Venezia Giulia Region,  Veneto Region, Vajont Foundation, Erto e Casso Municipality, Claut, Cimolais, Vajont, Longarone, Belluno, Bim Piave Association, National Order of Landscape Architects and Conservationists, Enel, Acqua Dolomia, NeonlauroMart Rovereto, Merz Torino Foundation, Institut Francais, F. Bevilacqua La Masa).
The Contest Jury includes world renowned artists and intellectuals, together with representatives of the territory. Among them: Marc Augè, Alfredo Jaar, Cristiana Collu, Angela Vettese, Marcella Morandini.
The Landscape, human, social and even economic of the Vajont cannot overlap with the idea of a “landscape of tragedy”.
Art and culture have value if they provide identity, in particular to territories encumbered by significant issues and to their inhabitants, to guarantee a sustainable and future-oriented life perspective  for them, through the processing of a memory both aware and reactive.

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It isn’t the first time that DC was given a special mention in the Landscape award.
In 2017, we have been awarded a special mention for Progettoborca, the platform regenerating the former Eni Village of Corte.
There is one landscape, a diversified one.
The spaces’ interconnection inside a unified and coherent and re-innovative vision: this is what is needed.