The exhibition opens on 4 September 2026 at the Caurga of the Parco Archeologico Botanico del Paradiso in Chiavenna
Nartwork APS is pleased to announce its participation in Crossing Paths – Stories of Vulnerability and Resilience, an interdisciplinary artistic residency promoted by the Stazione Valchiavenna per lo Studio dell’Ambiente Alpino of the “Ardito Desio” Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Milan, in collaboration with the Comunità Montana della Valchiavenna.
As part of the project, Nartwork APS served on the jury responsible for selecting the artists and projects participating in the residency, contributing its experience in the field of contemporary art research and international promotion.
The residency took place from 19 to 28 June 2026, bringing together artists, geologists, researchers, professionals and local experts in a process of dialogue focused on the relationship between art, science and the environment. For ten days, Valchiavenna became an open-air laboratory where direct observation of the landscape and interdisciplinary exchange provided the starting point for artistic research.
The central theme of the project is hydrogeological instability, explored not only as a natural phenomenon, but also as a process capable of transforming the landscape, affecting the relationship between communities and their environment, and leaving traces in collective memory. Landslides, erosion, debris flows and flooding thus become subjects of research and tools through which to investigate environmental transformations, including those linked to climate change.
Throughout the residency, participants engaged in excursions, geological fieldwork, visits to dams and hydroelectric facilities, consultations of the archives of the Stazione Valchiavenna, and meetings with scientific and cultural institutions. The aim was to create a shared research space in which art and science could maintain their own autonomy while, at the same time, generating new ways of observing and interpreting the landscape.
The Exhibition
The outcomes of the residency will be presented in the exhibition Crossing Paths – Stories of Vulnerability and Resilience, opening on Friday, 4 September 2026, at 5:30 pm at the Caurga of the Parco Archeologico Botanico del Paradiso in Chiavenna (SO), Italy.
The Caurga, an ancient soapstone quarry, is an integral part of the exhibition project: a place where nature, memory and the history of extraction coexist, becoming a geological and cultural archive that welcomes the artworks as new layers of the landscape.
The exhibition brings together works by eight artists – Giulia Facchin, Maicol Formolli, Chiara Peruch, Gioele Provenzano, Anna Quaranta, Giorgia Tognoli, Umberto Zanette and Rebecca Zen – and unfolds through eight thematic sections that guide visitors from apparent stillness to fracture, from the transformation of matter to reconstruction.
Photography, sculpture, installation, sound, material practices and site-specific works become tools for making visible phenomena and relationships that often remain unseen, transforming scientific research into a sensory experience and creating a collective narrative around vulnerability, territory and resilience.
For Nartwork APS, serving on the jury of Crossing Paths represents a further opportunity to engage with institutions and organisations committed to promoting contemporary artistic research and experimenting with new models of collaboration between different disciplines.
The project demonstrates how dialogue between art, science and territory can generate new forms of knowledge and awareness, offering visitors not definitive answers but an open space for reflection on the transformations of the landscape and on the possibility of imagining new forms of resilience, care and coexistence.
Exhibition Information
Crossing Paths – Stories of Vulnerability and Resilience Contemporary Art Exhibition Opening: Friday, 4 September 2026, 5:30 pm Venue: Caurga, Parco Archeologico Botanico del Paradiso, Chiavenna (SO), Italy
The exhibition presents the outcomes of the Crossing Paths artistic residency, held from 19 to 28 June 2026.
For further information: stazione.valchiavenna@unimi.it
Project website: valchiavenna.unimi.it
