Curated by Celeste

05.04 – 28.06.25

LAVAPIU, Via Nicola Castagna 9

Teramo

Invited to create a site-specific project, the artist centers his reflection on water—not so much as a symbolic element, but rather as an issue that is both ecological and political, one of great significance for the region.

The Gran Sasso aquifer system, the largest in Abruzzo, has seen its water table drop by approximately 600 meters following the construction of tunnel passages between 1969 and 1987, with a reduction of up to 95% in the flow of some springs. Over the years, the local population has faced alarming events, including water shortages, murky water due to maintenance work, and even chemical spills from the laboratories of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics, located beneath the mountain.

Attentive to this issue, Francesco Alberico begins a collaboration with the Abruzzo Forum of Water Movements (Forum H2O), an association that brings together local committees, social organizations, unions, associations, and individual citizens, and was one of the main promoters of the 2011 abrogative referendums. That year, a massive mobilization campaign saw 95% of voters, among other things, deliver a clear “no” to the privatization of water resources, favoring a fully public management model. Despite an incredible voter turnout, in recent years there have been repeated attempts by administrations to undermine this choice through legislative proposals and political strategies of various kinds.

For the exhibition’s opening, Alberico creates a space for debate and reflection on water as a common good, involving representatives of the Abruzzo Forum and presenting works that will be offered to visitors in exchange for a symbolic donation to the association. The artist reimagines the 2011 ballot papers as fabric handkerchiefs, materializing a metaphor: he assigns an insufficient plasticity to that condition which arises whenever “a democratic change is blocked or hollowed out, popular consensus is extorted, manipulated, or hijacked by its interpreters” (M. Bascetta). At the same time, however, he opens up a dialectical dimension that we are invited to enter and contribute to.

The works were created in collaboration with Arcolaio, a textile company in the province of Teramo.