AMNESIE - Reminds us not to forget

AMNESIE, a project by Zerial Art Project, curated by Elisabetta Zerial. EXHIBITION CALENDAR - Openings: 03/06 and 06/09, 7.00 pm – Vila Vipolže, Vipolže 29, Dobrovo Slovenia

Amnesie for an entire community, two cities, two nations, with a shared vision of rediscovering, reinterpreting and celebrating cultural heritage. Zerial Art Project presents the exhibition Amnesie, curated by Elisabetta Zerial, as part of GO! 2025 – Borderless Nova Gorica Gorizia European Capital of Culture, under the patronage of the Municipality of Gorizia, in collaboration with Banca BCC Venezia Giulia, PromoTurismoFVG and Associazione Sociale Culturale Dâ Aire.

Amnesie develops as a widespread project that brings together eleven contemporary artists in four emblematic places of the cross-border territory: Casa Krainer, Palazzo Lantieri, Kinemax and Vila Vipolže.

Nova Gorica and Gorizia, once divided by a political and ideological border, today become a symbol of a Europe without barriers, crossed by shared memories and collective traumas.

Eleven site-specific solo exhibitions — by Stefano Cagol, Nina Carini, Federico Clapis, Massimo Gardone, Andreas Senoner, Desideria Burgio, Andrea Guastavino, Marco Bolognesi, Giordano Floreancig, Camilla Marinoni and Marina Moreno — explore amnesia as a fluid condition of contemporary existence: loss, removal, oblivion, but also fertile space for a possible regeneration of memory. Amnesia, in fact, is not just a subtraction: it is a void that can become possibility.

In Nova Gorica and Gorizia, cities once divided and now united, art becomes a bridge between past and future, between multiple identities and a common feeling.

The Architectures of Memory The places that host Amnesie are not simple containers, but real architectures of memory: Casa Krainer, Palazzo Lantieri, Kinemax and Vila Vipolže tell stories of cohabitation and separation, of traces left by time and historical stratifications.

Their structures — medieval, Renaissance or in the Gorizia Liberty style — dialogue with the works, amplifying the suspension, the void and the reconstruction that amnesia brings with it: every room, every stone, every fresco becomes a trace of the past, ready to make itself present through contemporary art.

Vila Vipolže In the green heart of Brda, among neat vineyards and centuries-old cypresses, stands Villa Vipolže, the most beautiful Renaissance villa in Slovenia. Surrounded by an enchanting landscape, the villa represents the meeting point between the lush nature of the Collio and the historical and cultural stratification of a border region.

It is no coincidence that it is often described as a place at the crossroads of three worlds: the Latin, the Slavic and the Germanic, which have intertwined here over the centuries, leaving visible traces in the architecture, language and local traditions. The origins of the villa date back to the 11th century, when it was built as a hunting residence for the Counts of Gorizia.

In the following centuries, it passed into the hands of important noble families, such as the Herbersteins, the Della Torres, the Attems and the Teuffenbachs.

During the 17th century, the villa was transformed into a very elegant holiday residence, with a rectangular plan and two corner turrets, decorated in Renaissance style and enriched with architectural elements influenced by the Venetian style, which was then widespread in the area.

Even today, its park preserves the oldest cypress trees in Slovenia, which rise majestically in front of the main façade.

Severely damaged in the 20th century during the world conflicts, Villa Vipolže has undergone a complex conservative restoration, carried out with the support of the European Union and under the supervision of the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Heritage of Nova Gorica.

Today the villa is a lively cultural centre, open to exhibitions, meetings and artistic residences, and hosts numerous events that enhance the historical and contemporary identity of the area.

In 2025, Villa Vipolže hosts two projects within the Amnesie exhibition, which explores the relationship between memory, oblivion and the construction of identity.

Giordano Floreancig presents a series of invented portraits, made in oil on canvas, strongly material and full of disquiet.

His faces, never existed but plausible, question the viewer: who are you, if you have been prevented from remembering where you come from? Identity, in this context, emerges as a mosaic reconstructed from forgotten or distorted fragments. Massimo Gardone presents a visual research that declines the theme of amnesia through the landscape and the environment.

His photographs of nature, devoid of human presence, become poetic reflections on what the memory of the landscape retains, erases or transforms, inviting a deeper contemplation of the relationship between man, nature and time. Villa Vipolže, with its history made of passages and stratifications, thus confirms itself not only as a physical place, but also as a metaphor for a collective identity in constant rewriting.

The declinations of Amnesia In this review, amnesia unfolds in four overlapping and intersecting areas.

On a historical and geopolitical level, amnesia acts as an instrument of power: by choosing which events to pass on and which to erase—world wars, imposed borders, genocides, or resistance movements—it creates fragmented identities, suspended between memory and oblivion.

On a psychological and emotional level, it is a defense mechanism of the unconscious: forgetting to protect oneself from trauma, but risking losing parts of oneself, leaving open wounds.

On the environmental and landscape front, we have lost the deep connection with nature, the rhythm of the seasons and ancient knowledge, while the landscapes themselves become silent archives of submerged memories - ruins, abandoned sites, traces of a past that resists.

Finally, in the realm of archives and identity: who are you if you have been prevented from remembering where you come from?

Identity is often built precisely from what has been forgotten or distorted, in an attempt to mend what has been separated.

Amnesia manifests itself in the dispersion of documents and the erasure of stories, questioning the construction of the self when roots are denied.

Amnesie is a journey through these languages and territories, a mosaic of visions that gives voice to what has been silenced and transforms the void into a space for reconstruction, in a poetic act of resistance and rebirth.

Eleven contemporary artists — Stefano Cagol, Nina Carini, Federico Clapis, Massimo Gardone, Andreas Senoner, Desideria Burgio, Andrea Guastavino, Marco Bolognesi, Giordano Floreancig, Camilla Marinoni and Marina Moreno — inhabit four symbolic places of collective memory: Vila Vipolže in Brda, Casa Krainer, Palazzo Lantieri and Kinemax in Gorizia.

Spaces steeped in history, marked by cultural and architectural stratifications – medieval, Renaissance, Art Nouveau – that become living frames for a dialogue between art, history and identity.

The works – painting, sculpture, installations, graphics, photography, video art, cinema, NFT digital languages, sound art and performance – trace a sensitive geography of amnesia as a condition of our time. Each artist creates a site-specific project, conceived in dialogue with the architecture that hosts it, transforming each location into an active memory device.

Alongside the exhibitions, the programme also includes collateral events dedicated to in-depth study, with talks, screenings, workshops and performances designed to involve the community and offer new perspectives on the present.

VILA VIPOL ŽE

June 3 – September 3

Giordano Floreancig: The Art of Forgetting

September 12 – November 17

Massimo Gardone: Oasis – Embrace to Bloom