This year, for the first time, the residency will take place across two distinct archaeological sites: the Polo Museale di Soriano Calabro and the Villa Romana Palazzi di Casignana. Though just an hour apart, the two locations reveal strikingly different facets of Calabria. Perched on the Tyrrhenian side of the Serre mountains, Soriano Calabro is a small town in the Province of Vibo Valentia, where artisanal traditions in ceramics and woodworking remain vibrant. Once a prominent center of learning from the 15th to 18th centuries — thanks to a grand Dominican convent built in 1510 — its cultural weight was diminished by the earthquakes of 1659 and 1783. In the 1830s, a new church was constructed within the ruins, making the current museum complex a rare example of layered cultural rebirth. In contrast, the Villa Romana site — bisected by a modern highway — is among the region’s most significant archaeological areas. It lies just outside Casignana, a village of fewer than 500 inhabitants. Moving between the micro-histories of these two sites, In-ruins invites artists, curators, and researchers to view archaeology as an epicenter, vector, and vantage point for engaging with broader topographic, historical, and cultural landscapes.
Residents
The residency program 2022 was curated by Nicola Guastamacchia, Maria Luigia Gioffrè and Nicola Nitido.
Jury
Mathilde Ayoub
Curator / PhD University of Clergy
Roberta Garieri
Writer and researcher / PhD University of Rennes
Aloisia Leopardi
Director, Richard Saltoun Gallery London /
Castello San Basilio residency, Basilicata
Vittorio Parisi
Director of Studies and Research, Villa Arson, Nice
SV Randall
Speculative ruins
Architecture and its possible variations resurface in the work of New York-based artist SV Randall, who shapes objects and narratives through sculptural practice. Randall reimagines the entire archaeological site, recreating it using the ephemeral material of sand. This fragile miniature is complemented by a parallel research process: the artist has photographed and catalogued the museum’s extensive collection of statue fragments in order to later develop an idea of “speculative new ruins,” conceived through a technological lens and grounded in the de-anthropomorphizing perspective of machine learning.
Partners
COMUNE DI SORIANO CALABRO