This year, In-ruins finds its way in Puglia for the first time. After the editions in Calabria and Basilicata, the project does not revolve around a defined archaeological site, but instead unfolds across an entire city: Canosa di Puglia. Here, archaeology permeates the urban fabric – it is fragmented, often subterranean. A submerged geography that transforms the city into a constellation of buried places, undermining the very notion of a “site.”
We also shift, for the first time, from the Ionian to the Adriatic shore: beyond the canonical boundaries attributed to Magna Graecia.
This displacement expands not only the geographical scope, but the conceptual one as well. Immersion in such a stratified landscape becomes possible through the strategic collaboration with the Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for the provinces of Foggia and BAT, the hospitality of the
Municipality of Canosa, and the patronage with contribution of Canosa Archaeological Foundation.
This synergy opens the doors to rarely accessible spaces, allowing the residency to become a genuine field investigation – also thanks
to the involvement and scientific collaboration of the Inter-University School of Specialization in Archaeological Heritage of the Universities of Bari “Aldo Moro” and Foggia.
In-ruins residency 2025 is
curated by Nicola Guastamacchia e Nicola Nitido; organized in collaboration with Fondazione Elpis; hosted by Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio BAT e Foggia and the Municipality of Canosa di Puglia; under the patronage of Fondazione Archeologica Canosina and Italia Patria della Bellezza; in academic synergy with University College London (UCL), AHA Network, and Arts Council England, coordinated by Nastassja Simensky.
Media partner: Salgemma
Design: Studio Co-Co
The territory of Canosa di Puglia was once the floor of an ancient sea. In a millennia-long exercise of apnea, one can imagine what was once submerged, now transfi gured into the vaults of catacombs and hypogea - into the very matter of walls, ceilings, and pavements. In Canosa this passage is not allegory but material condition: what was once seabed is now rocky crust; what was underground became the foundation of dwellings; and what seems invisible keeps surfacing among courtyards, alleyways, and domestic facades.
Rasoterra tells of the threshold where time flattens and eternity contracts into an instant: the moment of descent and ascent, in a continuous becoming of hills, bodies, and ruins. The surface of Canosa is an unstable, slanting plane that slips from rooftop terraces down into the darkness of quarries and catacombs, where the hum of insects and mosquitoes seems to guard the echoes of ancient rites and prayers.
Within this dissonant urban fabric - wedged between excavation sites and construction yards - the resident artists moved for over a month, turning their gazes into instruments of excavation. Thus, the town band will play for the fi rst time inside the Domus of Montescupolo; a young singer, like a wailer, will intone neo-melodic songs in the main square; the 1948 Strippoli Cinema will come alive again for one evening; the Necropolis of Pietra Caduta will host experiments in sound; while mystical sculptures will breathe life back into the famed Lagrasta Hypogea.
During our stay, we moved through Canosa like who pedals grazing the ground, carving subtle imprints into its landscape. This restitution to the city seeks to tell of these traces left behind -gestures rasoterra, and little more than a hundred meters above the sea.
Residents 2025
The residency program 2025 is directed by Nicola Guastamacchia with the curatorship by Nicola Nitido.
Jury
Vincenzo Estremo
Art Writer and PhD Course Leader, NABA, Milan
Chiara Marino
Director, Richard Saltoun Gallery, Rome
Ibrahim Neheme
Director, Beirut Arts Center
Sofia Schubert
Curator, Responsible for Exhibitions and Residencies, Fondazione Elpis, Milan
Partners
.png)
hosted by
in collaboration with
under the patronage of
academic partner
project by
