Catalogue > At random

Banzavóis is an invented word, in assonance with maize and perhaps dialectal amalgam, coined by Carlo Emilio Gadda for corn, a symbol of Lombard agricultural production. Banzavóis may also stands for empty bellies, the laborers and sharecroppers who found job in large numbers in the first Lombard industrial plants at the end of the 19th century. The word suggests a geographical-political shift in an imaginary South America: brought back to nowadays Brianza, it is well suited to its landscape rich in tropical flora, globalized right into the inner structure of a drastically changed nature. Banzavóis follows for two years the radical transformation process of the former Isotta Fraschini industrial area in Saronno, 20 km from Milan. A coring throughout a century, a kaleidoscopic journey in the history of a company abandoned for 30 years, six hectares of ruins and six of invasive species. The factory becomes a palimpsest for a narration in which antifascism, memory of work, conflict and discontinuation are gradually interwoven.

Lorenzo Casali works mainly in site-specific projects, which start from the analysis of the complex network of relationships existing in a given place, from the study of the cultural, social, political and economic stratifications that define it. Since the early 2000s he has participated in prizes, screenings, exhibitions and residencies in Italy and Europe. Since 2010 he has worked in the artistic duo Casali + Roubini. In addition to artistic research, he combines teaching activity, currently at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome (photo documentation) and Bergamo (video editing).