Saturday 4 February at 11.00 a.m. at the Museo delle Navi Antiche in Pisa will be the opening of the exhibition related to the project Vicine Distanze (Near Distances), the first of five contemporary art exhibitions with works and installations by Italian and Chinese students and former students of the Academies of Florence, Carrara, Venice and Macerata. The exhibition is organised by the cultural association Est Ovest Est, sponsored by the Municipality of Pisa and the Confucius Institute of the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna of Pisa. The exhibition cycle, curated by Cristian Biasci and Manuela Antonucci, will be composed of five exhibitions, with the participation of six artists each, called upon to confront the theme 'Water, the river and its relationship with the city'.
The exhibition will be open from Saturday 4 to Saturday 18 February 2023, during museum opening hours:
Friday: 3.30 p.m. - 6.30 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday: 10.30 a.m. - 6.30 p.m.
The project intends to give the authors the utmost freedom of language in order to investigate their different experiences, sensitivities and cultures, as well as the heterogeneity of the works proposed (from painting to video; from sculpture to installation), in a fascinating and constructive dialogue in search of common and non common points. The project emphasises the importance of integration between civilisations; the way in which this can be realised through art and knowledge, tools capable of bringing people together and laying the foundations for a concrete, authentic and constructive integration. It is also an opportunity to promote the values of diversity and inclusiveness, so that countries with a millenary history and important artistic and cultural excellences can confront each other and benefit from reciprocal knowledge, of cultures and languages in all their forms, themes on which EOE, the association that defined the project, is constantly working.
The artists taking part in this first edition are:
Vanessa Carlesso Bortignon (Academy of Fine Arts, Venice);
Laura Nardi (Academy of Fine Arts, Florence);
Iacopo Pinelli (Academy of Fine Arts of Macerata);
Yitong Wang (Academy of Fine Arts of Florence);
Xie Yi (Academy of Fine Arts of Macerata)
Zhang Mu Yan (Academy of Fine Arts of Florence).
EOE (East West East) is an apolitical and non-partisan non-profit association of social promotion, established in Pisa in 2021. EOE is committed to artistic, cultural and sporting exchange between the West and the East; its aim is to create a bridge between Western and Eastern culture, especially Chinese culture, by organising initiatives of various kinds with a focus on, but not limited to, the visual arts. The association's activities include the valorisation of the local territory, fostering the exchange of culture and its internationalisation; the organisation of conferences, exhibitions, competitions, training courses, thematic tours, workshops, residencies and other activities even in the fields of music, literature, theatre, cinema, publishing, tourism, food and wine, commerce, science and sport, including the promotion and dissemination of these activities throughout the territory, giving them international visibility. Finally, EOE helps to provide a welcome and assistance service to the Chinese community and to represent a concrete reference for those Chinese students who wish to start or continue their studies in Italian universities (EOE Mentoring Sistem). It supports universities in recruiting students from the Asian continent to the various degree courses, master's and doctorate programmes of the University, promoting linguistic-cultural mediation as well as the study, research and application of disciplines and techniques for psycho-physical wellbeing of naturopathic and nutritional Chinese medicine and many others. EOE APS includes professionals in the field of art and cultural management who have gained international experience, especially in the People's Republic of China.
