SLOW SCULPTURE

  

A sculpture symposium is an event that brings together artists sometimes from all over the world to make work in public spaces such as town squares or quarries. Local people, tourists and potential patrons are always curious to watch and perhaps talk with the sculptors as they work. But there are two big problems with this: noise and dust. Nearly all modern sculptors use pneumatic drills and angle-grinders. Time, after all, is money, for artists as for everyone else, and such symposia are usually all too brief in duration.

The people who live on a town square where a symposium is being held (Carrara, Italy's best-known marble centre, is a good example) have to keep their windows shut or risk having their houses filled with marble dust and the scream of diamond disks cutting through stone. The mechanisation of sculpture makes approaching the artists difficult and conversation impossible.

To overcome this barrier we have decided to hold a symposium where the sculptors work entirely by hand, just as Michelangelo did. As well as being more onlooker-friendly, the event will give sculptors an opportunity to experiment with hand tools (the stone provided will be Roman travertine). The symposium's title 'Slow Sculpture' also reflects our desire to create an environment that facilitates a more contemplative approach to the artistic process.

The symposium will be held in the medieval village of Casperia in the Sabine Hills north of Rome, Italy a setting of exceptional beauty and tranquillity. Casperia's narrow streets wind steeply up to the village church and are impassable to cars. The only sound to be heard is of children playing in the traffic-free alleys and squares. It is an ideal environment to work as in previous centuries to a human rhythm rather than at a pace dictated by machines.

Artists who have already expressed an interest in the project come from countries as diverse as Peru, Korea, Zimbabwe, Egypt and India. Our aim is to create a situation in which skills well known to artists who have only ever worked by hand (particularly sculptors from the developing world) can be shared with those who have tended to rely on machines.

A maximum of eight sculptors will be invited. They will be housed and fed in the Agriturismo Montepiano, Montasola. All expenses, including flights and materials, will be paid by 'Slow Sculpture'.

For further information: h.madge@tiscalinet.it

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