TEUTA by Matteo Valerio

A Villa Filanda Antonini (VFA) project with the support of the Arper Feltrin Foundation

On 13 May, in the former factory of Villa Filanda Antonini, the exhibition Teuta by Matteo Valerio will be inaugurated, marking the end of his residency project promoted by VFA: an annual programme calling upon international artists to interpret the material and immaterial specificities of the building and the territory around it.

Within the industrial space of Villa Filanda Antonini, Valerio has installed a textile landscape of large sails, patchwork canvases that metaphorically communicate with the host venue, once a silk spinning mill.

Here the artist makes use of natural fabrics whose material properties he modifies with a sculptural approach through addition – dyeing, painting, printing or embroidery – or subtraction – bleaching, stonewashing, engraving or laser-cutting. These transformative interventions have critical meaning, designed to attribute a new identitary value to the various production phases. As Valerio states:

“The Villa Filanda Antonini project unfolds through the contrast between craftsmanship and industrial pragmatism. I am interested in experimenting with the revolutionary qualities of materials, showing their intrinsic properties, the dynamics through which they are produced, the lives of those who work with them and the way they react to the environmental crisis.”

Valerio chose to dialogue with the Tonello firm, a manufacturer of clothing treatment technologies. It stands out for its innovative approach, deploying environmentally and socially sustainable policies. From within its research and development department, Valerio created textile works of which the narrative and symbolic potential is highlighted by a mixture of manual techniques and highly technological processes. His collaboration with this virtuous company rewrites the rules of engagement between art and industrial technology. At the same time, it outlines new viable operational scenarios in which the natural and the synthetic as well as craftsmanship and automation all coexist. Together with Villa Filanda Antonini, this creative cooperation approach is the concrete proposal that Valerio makes to the territory. He does not merely point out the social, cultural and environmental contradictions of manufacturing systems, but he offers proactive and responsible proposals for improvement based on participatory design.

The centrality of the individual within the processes coupled with their intrinsic ability to form part of a network guides the entire exhibition project which, as the title suggests, is dedicated to Teuta: a Venetian term meaning ‘community’.