Progetto RIVA

Sinestesie

curated by Valentina Gensini

works by Marcela Florian Castañeda, Chiara Gasbarro, Veronica Greco, Elisa Pietracito, Irene Scartoni, Giacomo Donati e Yun Zhang

The RIVA Project, directed by Valentina Gensini, proposes a critical and interdisciplinary investigation that enhances the third landscape in the urban area; the lush vegetation that has
grown spontaneously around the river represents, in fact, an extraordinary resource of biodiversity and non-anthropized landscape, constituting a veritable park in the heart of the city.
Through the participation of artists, curators, scientists, biologists, and architects, both italian and foreigners, the project produced original visual and sound portraits of the river
park and its memory, promoting new visions of the river and its banks, accompanied by workshops, meetings, and artist residencies.

As part of the 2024 edition RIVA reaches the core of the city’s historic center, reconnecting the original river network in the urban area through a site-specific collective exhibition, settled
in the Galleria delle Carrozze at Palazzo Medici Riccardi and dedicated exclusively to the works of young artists. By highlighting the area where the ancient river bed of the Mugnone stream – a tributary of the Arno River – once flowed, their gaze reconstructs a synesthetic and archaic environment that invites visitors to plunge themselves in a flow of relationships between art and nature. The artworks create a fluid path that underlines the dynamism of contemporary society while also establishing resting stations, suggesting a slow and meditative reconciliation with the natural landscape.

Organic compositions and video projections reflect on the contemporary perception of natural forms and of the crisis of ecosystems through an intimate sensory dialogue, while an
expansive sound space, aimed at generate a gradual and analytical transition from the natural to the artificial, reveals the challenges of the pursued mimesis.

The site-specific installations form a unified environment, offering a new vision of the river and its banks according to an ecological and ecosophical sensibility evoked through a multisensory engagement.