With the curatorship of Giovanni Ambrosio, Antonio Marano, Vesuvio Adventures. Produced by Vesuvio Adventures.

Corte Vico II San Michele, in its fourth edition, presents an installation-event that transforms a historic courtyard in Ottaviano (NA) into a living pavilion of contemporary art exploring themes related to life in Vesuvius’s red zone, this year specifically the mountain (the Somma–Vesuvius complex). Starting from the documentary archive Ius Soli, Campania Felix Delenda est by Giovanni Ambrosio, sound performances, video and photographic installations, and participatory forms, the event fosters a sensory and critical dialogue between international artists, territory, and community.

📅 May 10–11, 2025. Live performance: May 10, 2025

📍 Corte Vico II San Michele, 80044 Ottaviano (NA)

🎟 Free admission starting at 8 PM.

📩 Press contact: Giovanni Ambrosio | +33 6 52 61 31 18 | Marco De Vivo, Alessio Saviano vesuvioadventures@gmail.com

PRESS RELEASE:

Where does the Mountain begin and end?

The courtyard as a space for dialogue.

The courtyard as a documentary work.

The courtyard as fiber.

The courtyard as architectural pavilion.

As every year since 2022, around Ottaviano’s patronal feast, returns the new civil rite dedicated to art and dialogue: CORTE VICO II SAN MICHELE—a true private courtyard in Ottaviano’s historic center—which offers a space to process artists’ archives and encounters with Vesuvius. And, in particular, reflects the ongoing dialogue with the Vesuvio Adventures association, based on conversations, projects, walks, and views of the mountain (as we call the Somma–Vesuvio complex).

G. Ambrosio

Corte Vico II San Michele, in its fourth edition, was born in 2022 with the idea of installing, within a real Vesuvian residential architectural space, a documentary-based work titled Ius Soli by Giovanni Ambrosio—an archive (photographs, objects, videos, papers, traces, ruins, and fragments) of the Vesuvius Red Zone, i.e., 25 towns that daily face the prospect of becoming a vast archaeological site in case of eruption.

From the very beginning, the project opened up to a dialogue among international artists, creating conditions for a living exchange between artistic practices and the local context. That first gesture made it possible to bring contemporary artistic reflection back into people’s living places. The Corte Vico II San Michele courtyard is an inhabited, shared architectural space that belongs to people’s everyday lives. Here a series of questions arose: can art relate to the concerns of those who live here daily? What does it mean to live in Vesuvius’s red zone? How do we think about where we live using artistic tools? But also, how and where do we make art outside city centers? And with whom?

Vesuvius, in its Somma–Vesuvio form, is at the center of our lives and those who inhabit this part of Campania (and, ultimately, those who view it from afar). It is a point of tension that gathers many contemporary issues: risk, disaster, catastrophe, ecological emergency, and the fragility of existence. Living here means being continuously exposed to what philosopher Luca Salza referred to as clinamen, taking up Lucretius’s term: a deviation, a push that can occur at any moment.

For 2025 we decided to think together about what the mountain is today. For us, Vesuvius is the mountain: an inhabited, fragile, and layered ecosystem, where symbolic visions, dwellings, evacuation plans, but also strategies of resistance and persistence intertwine.

Curatorial Letter

Dear artists,

For the next installation Corte Vico II San Michele 2025, dedicated to the theme of the mountain (we normally call Vesuvius “the mountain”), I wish to thank you for your enthusiasm and willingness to share your work and knowledge.

I write to highlight the shared nature of the space hosting the installation and the form of proximity at the heart of Corte Vico II San Michele: people gathered, even if only for brief moments, around the same courtyard, exchanging practices, thoughts, objects, and visions.

Mountain and dialogues in the courtyard, in different languages and forms:

This is the fourth edition. I wanted to reignite the idea of dialogue among different aesthetics, people, and distant places—like Italy and Finland—which, despite apparent differences, share deep concerns for our environment and our time. I am truly grateful that this project unfolds, even curatorially, on foundations of friendship and shared trust over time, together with the desire to think and act beyond traditional exhibition formats.

I quote here an excerpt from the letter included in our first 2022 press release:

I’m pleased to announce this two-day installation, the result of a beautiful initiative by people who decided to open an exhibition space in order to enjoy it personally and to share it with their fellow citizens—a place to elaborate, think, and visualise themes and forms of everyday life in the towns along the Vesuvian area. I’ve gathered contributions from international artists with whom we’ve shared conversations, projects, and walks across Vesuvian soil—like Jone Kvie, Himali Singh Soin/David Soin Tappeser, Alessia Siniscalchi—and from artists with whom I share more local fibre, like Daniela Allocca, Progetto Fiori, rumoremuto.

Let me briefly explain the installation you are part of.

As in previous editions, the starting point is my work Ius Soli / Campania Felix Delenda— a documentary archive (https://giovanniambrosio.com/work/ius-soli/) now partly in ruin, after losing six years of material due to a malfunction. Ruins, incidentally, are a feature of the Vesuvius Red Zone.

The entire setup starts from here. Once again, I want to explore photography’s fundamental ambiguity, its presumed ability to capture reality’s complexity. In the courtyard there will be three doors covered with blue-back prints, each synthesizing an external visual impression of what we commonly call the Mountain:

  • A forest: seemingly soft, but dark.
  • A rock face.
  • The image of the mountain as seen along State Road 268 that encircles the volcano.

These doors mark a symbolic threshold—the boundary of access to the mountain—and also recall the work borrowed from Science of Singularities, a research group I’m part of, around the question Where does the mountain begin?

The idea of ascending a mountain is rooted in European culture: Petrarch, the Italian poet, was probably one of the first to codify this practice in writing (Ascension to Mount Ventoso). For this reason, I am happy to dialogue with non-Mediterranean perspectives, particularly with Pedro Hurpia, whose work I discovered in Finland. Hurpia has lived through and traversed mountains not only as an outsider but as a walker deeply familiar with the territory. (There will be much walking in this edition of the Corte as well.)

At the center of the installation is the sound and performative project by Mario Gabola and Giuseppe Vietri. The courtyard’s main entrance will be marked by the reproduction (from my photograph) of the Snowy project banner, bearing the words To love a place is not enough. It will serve as a performative testimony about snow and a critical reminder: identifying with a place can become problematic if it only reinforces attachment without nourishing a critical perspective. Beauty can be a trap.

The courtyard space:

The courtyard (“corte”) is real, and Vico II San Michele is its actual address. It is a partially inhabited architectural space in the Vesuvius area, with typical rural architecture elements—well, cellar, wood-fired oven—interconnected passages and domestic thresholds.

This is neither a traditional white-cube exhibition nor a gallery.

My goal is to create a space that first and foremost involves the public—made up of Ottaviano’s citizens who traverse the town during the patron saint festivities on May 8. In spring, people enter this usually closed space out of curiosity. My intention is not to create distance, but to let the atmosphere—through sound and performative dimension—strike the body first and then open the mind to complex meanings. We cannot ignore that anyone finding themselves in a contemporary exhibition risks feeling they are attending an academic seminar for researchers and experts; they would always feel out of place. However, by creating conditions for a physical encounter—as in performative arts—even in a space dense with ambiguity (which, for me, represents this work?), we invite everyone to let their imagination roam freely between thought and sensation, without the pressure of compression, without the spatial oppression of formal spaces. In this way, the aspiration is restored: the pleasure of inhabiting a complex space without turning art into a documentary or a didactic narrative or the caricature of itself and reality. Also for this reason, sound and sonic performances have played a central role in past Corte Vico II San Michele installations.

Looking forward to seeing and hearing you soon,

Giovanni

Mountain: Works and Artists

Mountain Sound – Mario Gabola & Giuseppe Vietri.

Drawing on music and recording experiences in the Picentini Mountains and Montevergine, Mario Gabola and Giuseppe Vietri build an immersive installation of field recordings manipulated live with prepared saxophone. Vietri’s recordings come from high-altitude sites, canyons, and forests, captured during excursions and residencies. Against the theoretical backdrop of studies by Agostino Di Scipio and Steven Feld, the duo creates a non-hierarchical sound space: live manipulation transforms every ambient noise—wind, rustling leaves, water drops—into musical material. The result is a layered acoustic fabric, diffused through a multichannel speaker system in the courtyard, transporting the listener on a sensory journey between nature and improvisation.

During the live performance on May 10, these historic recordings unfold in a continuous dialogue between live saxophone feed and pre-recorded soundscapes, offering an immersive experience that transcends the distinction between natural sound and human improvisation.

Ius Soli, Campania Felix delenda est – Giovanni Ambrosio.

Ambrosio applies three blue-back prints to the courtyard doors, each synthesizing a possible vision (the ambiguity of photography) of the “mountain”: the serene yet dark forest, the rock face, the perspective from SS 268. The doors become symbolic thresholds that question the relationship to symbolic (and actual) access to the mountain. As Dieter Richter reminds us, Vesuvius is the only mountain in the world for which one pays an entrance fee.

See what lies beyond the ground (2024) – Pedro Hurpia.

A black-and-white video installation (approx. 6 min.), experienced with headphones, exploring walks along post-conflict fractures in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Walking becomes a radical act: negotiating histories etched in earth and stone. On the outskirts of Mostar, where the Neretva’s currents reflect the region’s unresolved tensions, each step dialogues with absence. The anti-personnel mine—a territorial and ethno-nationalist war artifact—stands as a spectral interlocutor. Though now statistically fewer, these dormant threats remain laden with meaning, turning the walk into a prolonged act of trust and transgression. How do unmarked territories preserve memory? Through its vulnerable trajectory, can the body illuminate fractures between official narratives and lived topographies? The headphone experience transforms walking into a performative act of testimony, inviting the viewer to confront history’s invisible boundaries.

Snowy – Heli Keskikallio, Soile Voima, Jenni Laiti, Anttoni Halonen.

Snowy was a performative walk and multisensory installation in Helsinki (2024) that moved through snow, ice, extreme weather, darkness, and their effects. Born from research in Kilpisjärvi, Jokkmokk, and Helsinki—among mountains, snow, and thin ice—the artists skied and sank into snow. They saw a crow bury its head in a snowdrift, a magpie circling with bloodied chest and beak; glimpsed startled ptarmigans, willow ptarmigans playing, and hares vanishing into snow. They read reports and statistics, observed under microscopes and telephoto lenses. They listened to experts and learned new words. They tasted höytäkkä, nattura, kiituma, höytelö, and smelled härmä, kuura, kohva. They heard snow’s muffled silence and the faint tinkle of ice forming on its crust. They lingered in glittering twilight, dreaming of snowfields and glaciers. We admire and fear winter’s and thaw’s forces. Fears and hopes intertwine: the future unsettles us and we mourn the passage of time.

A reproduction of the banner, part of the walk, with the inscription To love a place is not enough welcomes visitors at the entrance, serving as a conceptual bridge between Arctic landscapes and the Vesuvian context, prompting reflection on caring for and transforming places. Snowy also appears in the portico as a video projection.

The Voice of the Mountain – curated by Mario Gabola.

A headphone sound installation dedicated to voices of exploration and reflection on the mountain theme. Alternating in the headphones are: the translation of Werner Herzog’s interview on man’s relationship with Alpine landscape; an excerpt from the article “The Visionary Mountaineer,” investigating the heroic ascent experience; the CODA fanzine’s account of the Crinal Session—impromptu climber gatherings.

What language does the mountain speak? – Science of Singularities.

A participatory installation born from the AlterLibrary project, inviting the public to answer two open questions: What language does the mountain speak? and Where does the mountain begin and end? Visitors leave their answers in a dedicated space. Reflections are collected and merged with selected quotes from philosophers, poets, and scientists to create a dynamic archive of knowledge and poetics. Science of Singularities, led by Loretta Mesiti and Meike Gleim in collaboration with Giovanni Ambrosio, explores democratic imagination as a practice of shared knowledge.

The Work Table.

A large table displays reference texts—academic articles and emblematic images—notes, written thoughts. QR codes alongside materials grant access to digital resources for deepening the installation’s themes.

Instaura Tour: Experiencing Ottaviano’s historic center to ascend the Mountain. – Instaura Tour, Andrea Damiati

A free guided tour rediscovering Ottaviano’s (NA) historic center, from medieval architecture to urban strata, focusing on landscapes, memories, and transformations induced by Vesuvius. Saturday, May 10, 2025, 5:30–7:30 PM, departing from Piazza dell’Annunziata. Free, by reservation via email at redazione.instaura@gmail.com or WhatsApp at +39 393 18 22 771

Reviving the knowledge-walking itineraries born in 2020—to “re-know” and document with photos, sketches, and notes the beauty, decay, order, and chaos of the historic center, and reflect on our villages’ past, present, and future. The itinerary ends with a visit to Corte Vico II San Michele at the moment the installation doors open.

👤 BIOGRAPHIES

Biographies of the artists

— Mario Gabola

Born in Salerno in 1981, lives and works in Naples. Saxophonist and sound experimenter, he founded the group A Spirale and the duo Aspec(t), exploring the relationship between saxophone, feedback, and DIY devices. He has collaborated with Agostino Di Scipio and released on international labels. His work investigates sonic instability and the meeting of radical improvisation and noise practices, with particular attention to environment and social relationships generated by sound.

— Giuseppe Vietri

Saxophonist born in Avellino in 1966, active since the late ’80s in the creative and improvisational music scene. He founded SinjarmaJazz and organized the Avellino Jazz Festival, involving internationally renowned artists. His method includes using reed instruments, prepared objects, and environmental recordings, with an approach that mixes sonic radicality and territorial rootedness.

— Pedro Hurpia

Visual artist and researcher based in Tbilisi (Georgia). His practice spans experimental geography, art, and critical thought. Currently a visiting artist at the Temporal School of Experimental Geography (UK), collaborating with SEA Foundation Tilburg (Netherlands). Recent honors include the 2025 Leveld Kunstnartun grant (Norway) and the 2024 Est-Nord-Est research grant (Canada). He has taught Visual Arts at the Pontifical Catholic University of Campinas (Brazil).

— Heli Keskikallio

Finland-based choreographer, dancer, and educator in Helsinki. Works in performance, dance, and somatic thought, creating shows and performative events, facilitating artistic gatherings, teaching, and writing on body, dance, and working structures in various contexts.

— Soile Voima

Dancer and researcher from Helsinki’s contemporary choreography scene for over a decade. Regular collaborator with choreographers like Heli Keskikallio (e.g., in Snowy, 2024) and Liisa Risu (Heavy Light, 2015; Huono / Fail, 2012). Her work spans site-specific performances, danced installations, and participatory projects, addressing landscapes, bodily memory, and movement-environment interaction.

— Science of Singularities

An artistic research lab (Brussels; Loretta Mesiti, Meike Gleim, Giovanni Ambrosio) exploring knowledge forms produced through creative and artistic processes. Science of Singularities designs initiatives at the intersection of theoretical, visual, and poetic practices, creating experimental collaborative spaces and editorial formats to facilitate exchange and cohabitation among artists, scholars, and citizens, both local and international. The AlterLibrary platform was presented in April 2025.

🌐 Vesuvio Adventures

Founded in Ottaviano in 2020, born from passion for Vesuvius’s natural and historical heritage, awareness of its great potential, and a will to actively contribute to the territory’s development and promotion. Hiking, educational activities, ecological volunteering, event organization, and multimedia production are the association’s main activities since its inception, in dialogue with public bodies.

PRESS CONTACTS

For interviews, press materials, and further information:

For more:

Past editions of Corte Vico II San Michele

Ius Soli

Ius Soli