Borderlight is an artistic research produced by Non Riservato, conceived and developed by the Borderlight Collective composed of artists and designers (Lorenzo Bruscaglioni, Emilia Castioni, Nicola Ciancio, Simona Da Pozzo, Cecilia Di Gaddo, Alice Grassi e Isabella Mara)from three associations belonging to Asterisma, Astronove and Ex-voto.
Milan reveals in its urban fabric visible traces of what were, over the centuries, city limits: Roman walls, medieval and Spanish gates and walls, waterways. Today these limits have been transformed into representative spaces of the city and have been replaced by a tangle of boundaries, even intestines: economic and social margins, boundaries between rural and urban dimensions, passages, residual spaces and architectural barriers capable of defying any level of skill.
Through citizens’ reports, the Borderlight Collective investigates these places with the perspective of reintegrating them into the city’s imagination, bringing light to them. New borders that are frontiers between known and unknown; light as a poetic tool that makes the night possible and desirable; darkness as a space to be conquered and revealed, as a gateway to other worlds; darkness as a premise for creating new narratives. The mapping of these places, invites inhabitants to create new landscapes. A landscape as a project to be built and maintained over time by the will of those who inhabit it. (Anna Detherige, Scultori della speranza)
Since 2017, we have initiated participatory mapping to identify and activate public spaces for the benefit of the community through artistic actions such as installations, performances, workshops, and light walks. To follow project developments, events, performances and installations, explore the map at the following link:
The project was presented in April 2016, during the Fuorisalone at Ponte delle Gabelle in the Brera area, in partnership with Brera Design District, with the contribution of Fondazione Cariplo and the institutional partnership of the City of Milan. April 2017 saw two Borderlight light installations, one at Santeria Social Club and one at Mare Culturale Urbano; while in May and June 2017, Borderlight sculpted the night at Pixel-Picnic in Parco Sempione and Smart-It at the Martesana Amphitheater, respectively. Since September 2017, Borderlight Collective artists have been engaging Milanese citizens and Municipalities in exploring and identifying eight special places through eight artistic surveys. In each City Hall, the collective creates a program of artistic interventions, starting from the spot where the light installation is set up, like a banner signaling the presence of the project.
The inauguration of the work is the moment of presentation of the Borderlight project and the involvement of neighborhoods, associations and residents. In this context, people mark the places where they would like to “bring light” and, decide whether and how to participate in the artistic interventions to follow.
Among the works produced during the collective’s years of activity (2015-2019), we particularly note:
Far luce. Practices that reveal places and relationships, roundtable at Villa Pallavicini, curated by Nicola Ciancio and Gabi Scardi, with : Nicholas Anastasopoulos (architect and researcher, professor at the National Technical University of Athens, Greece), Bianco Valente (art duo, Italy), Borderlight (art collective, Italy), The Brick Box (art collective, UK), Pietro Gaglianò (critic and curator, Italy), Jacopo Lareno Faccini, (research associate at DAStU – Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, Politecnico di Milano), Rossella Moratto (critic and independent curator, Italy) and Maria Papadimitriou (artist, Greece).
City as Vision, exhibition at San Vittore e 40 Martiri curated by Gabi Scardi 22nd May – 21st June 2018
City Light Art, a talk to meet citizens and reflect on light curated by orenzo Bruscaglioni and Simona da Pozzo. With: hiara Bartolozzi (Lacittàintorno, Fondazione Cariplo), Elettra Bordonaro (Architect Phd Light Follows Behaviour), Ernesto Ciaramella (Professor Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa), Paolo Cottino (Technical Director KCity, Milan), Lorenzo Lipparini (Councillor for Participation, Active Citizenship and Open data of the Municipality of Milan), Massimo Uberti, (Artist).
Scolpire la notte, exhibition at Condominio Museo, Nesxt Festival, Turin
Scolpire la Notte, book edited by PostmediaBooks 2019, presented at Museo del ‘900
