"the art of remembering"

Naples, Italy: September 21, 2021 - October 5, 2021

“All that is solid melts into air,
Diffusing the labyrinth,
A continuum of existence in the end
As travellers. they do journey,
Searching for some sort of wonderland.
What is it that connects us?
A memory?
What if we stop remembering?”
- Samina Virani
On September 21, 2021 “the rabbit hole” collective presented “the art of remembering” ; in its first global residency program in collaboration with Fondazione Morra, Naples and E-M Arts.
7 international applicant, and 3 local Neapolitan artists were selected to spend 14 days at the artist residence of Fondazione Morra and Museum Hermann Nitsch, in the heart of Naples, unraveling the question “what if we stop remembering?”
The process-based program, designed as “a work within a work”, was interlaced with scripted journeys: “the labyrinth of mirrors” and “the secret gaze” created by founder and artistic director of the rabbit hole, Samina Virani, where Naples proposed as wonderland transformed itself into a looking glass, a space of deep introspection, evoking and awakening “the art of remembering.”

This deliberate dramaturgy of inner exploration, with saturation and desaturation days, created an environment that was both immersive but also reflective.
Artists also explored the subject on their own, as well as attended 3 workshops introducing The Rabbit Hole Method™.

Methodology:
Each artist interrogated the subject of "remembering" immersing in The Rabbit Hole Method™, a process of inquiry that extracts and distills from contemporary artistic practises, philosophy, mysticism, mathematics and dance. It includes the teaching of Hazrat Inayat Khan, Farid Ud-Din Attar, Jorge Luis Borges, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Lewis Carroll, among others.
As part of its founding ethos, the rabbit hole seeks to stimulate new ideas about the self and the other, and to challenge culturally constructed limits and borders.
Under careful advisory from Georgetown University, and the MIT Senselab, the program bases its principles on deconstruction, and the reinvention of rituals and forms. We also work with Teatro de los Sentidos, based in Barcelona, an immersive theatre company that creates experiences deconstructing what has become our pre-supposed sensory mapping, and instead discovering the magical silver thread that presents itself, if one is open to “remembering”.

Artists expectations:
Each artist was required to develop an answer to "the art of remembering”, becoming an archive of responses, which was presented as a process-based work at Museo Hermann Nitsch in a public finale on October 5th, 2021. The final response from each artist will be published on this site in January 2022.
Broadcast internationally across collaborative social media channels, it instigated the first seed of idea generation around “the art of remembering.”
The next residency will occur in September 2022, in a Southern Mediterranean port.
At the conclusion of the residency:
Each artist received a master class certificate of The Rabbit Hole Method™, as well as established a place in the rabbit hole collective.

Each artists’ work has also been communicated through the rabbit hole’s global channels.

Living working environment:

Artists lived and worked in the artist residency of Fondazione Morra and worked in the Hermann Nitsch Museum.

They experienced playful workshops created by the rabbit hole; and a program immersing in the city of Naples curated by Fondazione Morra.

The residency space was a recently renovated living quarter in the heart of Naples, with an open kitchen for collaborative meals, and playground to hold salons. All workshops took place in the Hermann Nitsch Museum.

About Fondazione Morra:
Fondazione Morra, considered the epicentre of cultural investigation in Italy, includes Casa Morra Archivio d'Arte Contemporanea, Associazione Shozo Shimamoto, Vigna San Martino and Museum Hermann Nitsch, as part of their portfolio of cultural spaces in Naples.
The foundation, whose artistic and cultural raison d'être is “art for the sake of research and knowledge” is fascinated by the subversive potential of the avantgarde. It has hosted artists such as Hermann Nitsch, Marina Abramovic, Bob Watts and Peter Kubelka. The foundation has officially invited the rabbit hole to create the residency program with them.

Who can apply:
With only 10 spaces to offer for this residency, we selected candidates for both their artistic merit, passion in the subject, as well as how each could contribute to an overall group synergy.
The artist-in-residence candidates were selected via an open call application process, as well as by invitation.
751 artists, curators, writers, composers, poets, researchers, musicians, performers, from all background applied.
Judging committee:
Dr. Don Rodrigues, Vanderbilt University
Raffaella Morra, Fondazione Morra/E-M Arts
Piero Tomassoni, Co-founder of online art advisory Artvisor
Teresa Carnevale, President Fondazione Morra
Samina Virani, Founder and Artist Director, the rabbit hole