We continue our exploration of the relationship between art and the environment, a project we launched in 2023 with the opening of Tomás Saraceno’s work “Life(s) of Webs, arachnophobias, arachnophilias, and other stories,” because culture and its many forms of expression can bring different worlds into dialogue with one another.

To explore the theme of the environment and climate change—with all its pressing issues—through various languages such as art, cinema, music, philosophy, and theater, “Rizomatica. New Forms of Coexistence,” the arts and environment festival curated by Imma Tralli and Roberto Pontecorvo of Marea Art Project, with the support of the municipalities of Matera, Moliterno, and Pisticci and the participation of the Open Culture 2019 Volunteers Association,scheduled between April and June in Matera, Moliterno (PZ), and Pisticci (MT).

How can people, through culture, change behaviors and habits that have a positive impact on nature and the environment?

This reflection forms the basis for a program of artist residencies, performances, screenings, and meetings designed to reach a broad audience—with a particular focus on young people—by utilizing unconventional spaces in the city of Matera to extend into the inland areas of the Basilicata region. The initiative invites participants to experience the “subversive power of permanent catastrophe” and to collectively rethink new forms of reconnection and coexistence between individuals and nature.

We symbolically inaugurate the festival onApril 22, World Earth Day, at the Cineteatro Pino in Moliterno with an event dedicated to the students of the “F. Petruccelli – G. Parisi” High School: the screening of the film “Futura” (2021) by Pietro Marcello, Francesco Munzi, Alice Rohrwacher, a collective investigation aimed at exploring the vision of the future held by young people aged 15 to 20 whom the directors met during a long journey across Italy.

Curatorial concept by Imma Tralli and Roberto Pontecorvo

“Environmental and ecological catastrophes, as well as political, social, economic, and migration crises, have become the lens through which we view the contemporary world, obscuring any possibility of a future. But the crisis is not merely the culmination of the world’s ills; it is the transformative force that compels us to take a stand in the face of the present’s complexity.

Environmental movements, philosophical theories, and the practices of collectives and artists—as well as the driving force of informal groups of young people—have embarked on a shared journey of awareness that sees in the network, in the circularity of ideas and actions, the only strategy for putting into practice another way of seeing, living, and breathing together.

Scientific studies have shown that the only chances for survival in extreme environments characterized by resource scarcity lie in full and unconditional collaboration and mutual support among individuals of one’s own species and with those of different species (Fitopolis. The Living City, Mancuso S., 2023).

Rhizomatic is an invitation to experience the subversive power of catastrophe by turning the current state of permanent emergency on its head to rethink together new forms of reconnection and coexistence between individuals and nature.

Unfolding through a living network capable of fostering multiplicity, connection, and decentralization—and of resisting even under adverse environmental conditions—rhizomatic thinking invites us to reimagine the present by expanding the web of ecosystemic relationships, celebrating through art and culture unprecedented scenarios capable of inspiring the choices humanity will face in the near future.”