Viasaterna is pleased to announce the workshop led by Barbara De Ponti, curated by AEF (Activities, Education, Training)/PAV, at PAV in Turin, on Saturday, November 22, 2025, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Human beings quickly understood the symbolic power of earth and the potential of manipulating it—one of the earliest conscious creative acts aimed at improving various aspects of our species’ life. The Take Care Of workshop, before arriving at PAV, originated from the broader project launched in 2024 in Forlì, thanks to collaboration with various organizations working in the social sphere, such as Libera Terra, For.B, and Radici Urbane. In this context, at the Agricultural Farm of the House of Legality, on land recovered from the previous year’s flood, the artist engages with a community of people with vulnerabilities and the professionals who work there daily (the gardener, the psychotherapist), beginning to record the imprint of their hands in clay.

At PAV, the workshop will similarly focus on gestures of care in their various possible expressions, such as the different positions of hands approaching to protect, wrap around, and care for. In this experimentation, each participant will be guided in exploring the meaning of their own actions, also drawing on the experiences suggested by PAV’s spaces. These actions will be followed by the imprinting of the gesture in clay, a sensitive material capable of recording and preserving even the slightest pressure or influence. Special attention is also given to the choice of raw material: red stoneware, a clay that is easy to model and becomes highly durable once fired, suitable even for outdoor installations.

Complementing and providing further reflections for the workshop will be a presentation by Alessandro Castiglioni with his book Teorie dei climi (Postmediabook, 2023), which includes works such as Barbara De Ponti’s Clay Time Code and Gephyrocapsa Oceania, as well as Binta Diaw’s Naître au monde, c’est concevoir (vivre) enfin le monde comme relation #3, whose solo exhibition is currently on view at PAV. The author, senior curator and deputy director at the MA*GA Museum in Gallarate, critically reexamines the relationship between climate and individual character, challenging outdated and problematic assumptions. In contemporary times, geographical sciences and practices acquire an entirely new meaning. It is not only a matter of representation and documentation; more broadly, geographical practice becomes a practice of world awareness, of knowledge: an act of discovery and love.

Saturday, November 22, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

PAV Parco Arte Vivente
Centro sperimentale d'arte contemporanea
via Giordano Bruno 31, Turin

Free participation with required reservation for a maximum of 15 participants. 

Info and reservations, limited spaces available:
+39 011 3182235 / lab@parcoartevivente.it

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