Alzheimer Café Umeå – Valentina Vetturi (IT)
“Alzheimer Café” (2014-) is an ongoing series of sculptural and sonic environments enconpassing performance-based works, whose focus is the relationship between memory and sound. Each work embeds a specific imagery, and is represented through a single iconic image.
Alzheimer Café I is a red pyramid. Commissioned by Kunsthalle Goeppingen, Germany, in 2014, the public art sculpture encloses two musical boxes, from which the sound of a bass part and a melody alternate. Alzheimer Café II (2014) is a cloud –a futuristic listening space. The performance, and the video installation from this work, was produced and acquired by MAXXI in Rome, Italy.
Alzheimer Cafè Umeå is premiered at Rum för performance and takes place at Norrlandsoperan. Conceived as a sound-based work, the performance represents a form of resistance to a condition of disappearence and decadence. All the works from the series “Alzheimer Café” include musical fragments sung or hummed by people affected by neurological disorders of memory, and have been realized in collaboration with health and medical centres, their staff, and their patients. With “Alzheimer Café” Vetturi creates a non-conventional, listening space in which intimacy takes on a public dimension.
Vetturi’s most recent solo shows and group exhibitions include: “Illuminate Art Festival”, Zug, Switzerland (2018); ALL’APERTO, Fondazione Zegna, Turin, Italy (2017); Quadriennale 16, Rome, Italy; Strauhof, Zurich, Switzerland; .Point Perf, Geneva, Switzerland (2016); MACRO Museum, Rome (2015); MAXXI Museum, Rome; Kunsthalle Göppingen, Germany; Tranzit.ro, Bucharest, Romania (2014); Istituto Svizzero di Roma, Rome (2013); Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy; Viafarini, Milan, Italy (2012).
Alzheimer Cafè Umeå is a project by Valentina Vetturi initiated in 2016, as part of the first Residency Program for Italian Visual Artists at the Italian Cultural Institute in Stockholm. Alzheimer Cafè Umeå is curated by Valentina Sansone and co-produced by: “Room for Performance”at Bildmuseet, Vita Kuben and Norrlandsoperan, Umeå, Sweden; The Italian Cultural Institute in Stockholm; Elektronmusikstudion (EMS), Stockholm.