Catalogue > Un extrait vidéo au hasard

Banzavóis, in assonance with maize, is an invented word coined by the Italian writer C.E.Gadda for corn, 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 site 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, socio-political achievements are gradually interwoven with today discontinuation landscape.

Lorenzo Casali (1980) is a visual artist and filmmaker working 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. Alongside his artistic research he carries out teaching activities, he is currently professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome (photographic documentation) and the Academy of Fine Arts Carrara in Bergamo (video editing).