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Venezia
21 May 2023 > 21 January 2024

Isola della CertosaBioGroundsFor a new environmental awareness

the exhibition’s closing has been extended to Sunday 21 January 2024

Isola della Certosa – Venice

  • Documento
  • a myMAXXI is the best gift for Christmas

opening hours

Monday closed
Tuesday to Sunday 11 am – 7 pm

Holidays extraordinary openings and closings

Tuesday 24 December 11 am > 4 pm
Monday 25 December closed
Tuesday 31 December 11 am > 4 pm
Wednesday 1 January 11 am > 7 pm
Monday 6 January 11 am > 8 pm

more information

Four installations created through an unconventional dialogue between artists, architects, designers, philosophers and botanists to tell the story of a place and its nature.

Andrea Anastasio with Angela Rui, Bêka&Lemoine with Stefano Mancuso and Studio Formafantasma with Emanuele Coccia.
For the occasion, the Alcantara-MAXXI Project also moved to Venice with the installation by Studio Ossidiana until 20 June 2023.

We are no longer allowed to be passive regarding the natural conditions surrounding us. The knowledge we can no longer afford to evade today is the environmental context we live in, and BioGrounds is a project that aims to activate this knowledge.

The idea was born from the union between environmental life (Bio) and the assonance with the term playground (Grounds), entrusting contemporary designers to create installations, devices and performances capable of telling the public the story of a place and its nature, involving visitors through actions and interventions.

The BioGrounds are conceived by designers – architects, artists, designers – in dialogue with theorists who are experts in ecological issues – philosophers, botanists, critics – and the optimal place for their realisation is the Island of Certosa in Venice, given its significant biodiversity. The works are designed to transform, live and grow old in the environment, as happens to every element marked by the passage of time. Observing their change is an integral part of active public enjoyment.

Invasi. Andrea Anastasio with Angela Rui

Populus Alba. Studio Formafantasma with Emanuele Coccia

Spaccasassi. Beka & Lemoine with Stefano Mancuso

Seed bed. Studio Ossidiana | Alcantara-MAXXI project


Invasi. Andrea Anastasio with Angela Rui

The terracotta pot is the first “home” created by man for a plant: this is were it germinates in the nursery and how it is transported to be planted. The pot, moreover, is one of the first artifacts of human history, present in all cultures of the world, a true archetype of human dwelling. Its circular shape recalls the cyclicity of nature itself, from the motion of the planets to animal conglomerations. In this project, a multitude of terracotta pots return to nature, going back to being vessels for plants and animals that will colonize them over time, spontaneously. Placing the pot back into nature, it returns to being a gestational womb, refuge, protection. The project develops on an amphibious area – woodland and lagoon – and is composed of stoneware pots and elements on which phrases are engraved, which for humans are readable as information referring to the environment, while for animals they will function as openings to transform the pots themselves into burrows.

Populus Alba. Studio Formafantasma with Emanuele Coccia

Trees are living organisms and not a mere supply of wood. A forest is not a crop, not comparable with intensive farming whose purpose is the exploitation of natural resources by man. It is a vital whole. To make this evident, the authors have chosen to literally give voice to a tree, through what they call a “Disney-like” operation, that is, translating the presence of this life into words. Instructions for use: Some metal devices have been placed directly on the trunk, branches and base of the tree and can hold a smartphone. Visitors can download, through a QRcode, a file that contains a voice, that of the tree telling about its condition. The devices’ function is that of amplifying the sound of the voice, acting as sounding boards.

Spaccasassi. Beka & Lemoine with Stefano Mancuso

The project is located in the ruins of the cloister of the ancient monastery of La Certosa and its protagonist is a tree, a nettle tree, which has sprouted spontaneously thanks to the residual waters of the well that once served the structure. This tree species is locally called “stonebreaker” for its prerogative to make its way even through the hard surface of roads and architectures imposed by man on nature. Its essence is therefore that of a resistant being, which survives the most hostile conditions: both those directly created by man with his artifacts, and the climatic ones caused by his actions. A series of performances will pay tribute to this tree that has given rise to some kind of myth due to its resistance skills. We are invited to sit, observe and listen to this symbol of natural resistance, with the attention we usually give to man-made works of art.

Seed bed. Studio Ossidiana | Alcantara-MAXXI project

The act of cultivating is the first action that man performs on nature modifying it to his own advantage; but it is also the beginning of an artificial process based on a plan whose object is the natural element. The history of this island has seen the presence of a number of monasteries, as testified by the remains of the central cloister of La Certosa, as well as of an ancient hortus conclusus, the protected space that was the heart of the monks’ lives, where vegetables were grown as a source of nourishment. Starting from this, Studio Ossidiana has imagined an enclosure that establishes a limit, a threshold partly to be crossed and partly not to be crossed. As in an ancient seedbed, the arable land is protected within a structure made of Alcantara, which fulfills the primordial function of protection. Thus this contemporary material, used for the first time in the world of Design in its special recycled version, safeguards and protects a nature cultivated by man.