On Saturday 4 and Sunday 5 October, on the occasion of the 21st Contemporary Art Day, promoted by AMACI (Association of Italian Contemporary Art Museums) and dedicated this year to the theme of education, PAC Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea and Premio Lydia/Fondazione Il Lazzaretto present Listening in Disturbed Ecologies, an event dedicated to sound and listening practices spread across the museum, the foundation and the public space of the Porta Venezia district, with works by Elena Biserna, art historian and curator, Giulia Deval, singer and multimedia artist, and Nicola Ratti, musician and sound designer, curated by Claudia D’Alonzo. “Disturbed ecologies” are damaged environments, degraded by human extractive logic but still inhabited and habitable. They are not only places of loss but also of possibility, non-human connections and unexpected multispecies relationships.
Listening in Disturbed Ecologies was created as a result of the PITCH research project. Notes on vocal intonation by Giulia Deval, winner of the 2024 Lydia Prize, an award given by the Fondazione Il Lazzaretto in Milan in support of contemporary art, in collaboration with the PAC Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea.
On the occasion of Contemporary Art Day 2025, Giulia Deval’s research will be accompanied by interventions and practices focused on the possibility of practising radical attention to the world through listening, with a particular focus on what is generally overlooked. All initiatives are free of charge.
PITCH. Notes on vocal intonation is a project that investigates, from an ecological and gender perspective, the role of intonation in human and non-human conversations and the stigmatisation of high-pitched voices and sounds in the Western historical perspective. Thanks to the support of the award, PITCH has been reimagined in the unprecedented format of a video essay, on display at the PAC together with the listening room COME A LITTLE BIT CLOSER. Initially created as a performance-lecture, with the support of NUB Project Space (Pistoia) and Periferico Festival, the video PITCH was created by Deval in collaboration with Luca Pescaglini, Miha Sagadin (filming and editing) and Guglielmo Diana (filming and audio editing). The project includes the workshop REASONS WHY I HATE MY VOICE – held at Fondazione Il Lazzaretto in November 2024 – which starts from the question: why are we so disturbed by listening to our own recorded voice?
From 4 to 5 October, the museum spaces will be filled with the sounds of Vispero, a site-specific installation by Nicola Ratti dedicated to whistling in its many forms, which straddle the boundary between the natural and the artificial. We whistle as a call or signal in immediate exchanges between humans. We whistle to communicate, in whistled languages such as Silbo Gomero, or in attempts at inter-species contact. In music, the synthesiser also whistles, creating the illusion of interaction with a world of quartz and silicon. The installation is generated in a continuous cycle from the interaction between the architectural body of the museum and an original composition of whistling sounds that traverse the space. On Sunday 5 October at 5.30 pm, Vispero will also host a special performance.
On Sunday 5 October at 4.30 pm, a talk with Giulia Deval in dialogue with Claudia D’Alonzo, Elena Biserna and Diego Sileo will be an opportunity to explore the artist’s research and themes, introduced by a presentation of the Lydia Prize with Alfred Drago and Linda Ronzoni, respectively president and artistic director of the Il Lazzaretto Foundation.
Sunday 5 October continues at 7.30 pm at Il Lazzaretto with Feminist Steps, a night-time walk for women, queer and non-binary people by and with Elena Biserna, who will lead us into public spaces to reflect together on gender (auditory) experiences and to unlearn some of the behaviours considered appropriate, safe or expected when we walk. These are the first steps in questioning the asymmetries in power relations between bodies in the public sphere and imagining together practices of care, solidarity, reappropriation or reversal, and nurturing other spatial configurations and practices. Feminist Steps starts at Fondazione Il Lazzaretto and winds its way through the streets of the Porta Venezia neighbourhood (limited places, booking is required).
(from the press release)
LISTENING IN DISTURBED ECOLOGIES, curated by Claudia D’Alonzo, PAC – Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan, 4-5.10.2025, XXI Giornata del Contemporaneo
images: (cover 1) Giulia Deval (2) Nicola Ratti, ph: Luca del Pia (3) Elena Biserna, «FEMINIST STEPS», ph. Lucía Alfaro Valencia (4) Giulia Deval
