Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Mumbai is very pleased to partner with Srishti Manipal University in bringing Italian art historian Elisabetta Rattalino for the festival “SMI – LIVE 2023” in Bengaluru.
We are happy to announce her work ‘TREES’ TALES’ with the students of Srishti Manipal University will be exhibited on 27 January 2023 from 10 am-6pm along the streets and in the parks of Yelahanka.
TREES’ TALES
During the month of January, Tree Tales began as an explorative interaction between art historian Elisabetta Rattalino and the students of Srishti Manipal University.
Conceptually, “It aims to bring both the humble and majestic trees of Yelahanka at the center of our experience of the neighborhood. Five among these trees were selected and investigated in depth: a Gulmohar Tree (Royal Poinciana), a Rain Tree (Samanea Saman), a Jamaican Cherry Tree (Muntingia Calabura) and an African Sausage Tree (Kigelia africana).
Yelahanka is a rich urban ecosystem where diverse trees and plants grow untamed and entangled with the life of the neighborhood. Walking and learning with the students in such a neighborhood, observing the trees and the animals living in the area with specialists was what attracted me to the project” – Elisabetta Rattalino.
At SMI festival, each will be accompanied by a “tree-specific” cloth-based work unveiling the trees’ more-than-human history and ecology.
Elisabetta Rattalino – Art Historian
Elisabetta Rattalino is an art historian. Her research engages with artistic practices, and visual and design cultures from 1945 to present day, with a focus on rural environments and landscapes, particularly in Italy. Supported by CIMA – Centre for Italian Modern Art (New York), Margaret and Alfred Forrest Trust (Edinburgh) and the Master dei Talenti della Società Civile (Turin). Elisabetta holds a PhD from the School of Art History of the University of St Andrews (2018), and she was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Free University of Bolzano as part of the project “Scientific Visualisation: Impact on Practice” (2018-2021). Since 2010, she has been collaborating with socially-engaged artists and arts institutes in Italy (BAU, Bolzano; Cittadellarte – Fondazione Pistoletto, Biella; Kaninchenhaus, Turin), Scotland (Deveron Projects, Huntly) and now India.
For this festival, Elisabetta worked with the students on finding local genomes of flora in public spaces such as Lalbagh Botanical Gardens, Cubbon Park and Yelahanka. This was transferred to studying and classifying the genomes of Yelahanka to better understand and visually approach the work for each section.
More on the art historian: https://www.italianmodernart.org/fellows/elisabetta-rattalino/ (CLICK HERE)!