Emisferi Sud

In Michele Ciacciofera’s artistic practice, the process of unraveling plural temporalities starts from a particular geophysical and social space: the Mediterranean Basin. It takes the cue from objects, natural resources, and cultures of the island of Sardinia as basic elements of human history. His effort not only challenges time but also amnesia, becoming a quest for a culture of memory.
Emisferi Sud (Southern Hemispheres) is the title of Ciacciofera’s exhibition at the MAN Museum in Nuoro, as well as of its catalog. It refers mainly to the Mediterranean Sea as a cultural matrix, both the centre of the world and its periphery. A unifying sea distinguished by cultural acquisition and heritage, bitterness and initiation. The catalog documents the works conceived specifically for the exhibition, such as Life Swing, or readapted for the museum’s spaces—the installation Janas Code, presented for the first time at the 2017 Venice Biennale, and The Density of the Transparent Wind, an acoustic work commissioned by documenta 14. Essays by the exhibition curator Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, writer Hu Fang, art critic and curator Ami Barak, and a conversation between the artist and MAN director Lorenzo Giusti accompany the visual narration.