Krzysztof Siatka
Arts & Cultural Studies Review, Issue 3 (45), 2020, pp. 291-300
https://doi.org/10.4467/20843860PK.20.028.12588In this study I reflect upon the project Da quassùètutta un’altra cosa (From Above It Is Something Different Altogether), executed by Rotor in 2018 in Palermo, for the Manifesta 12 European Nomadic Biennial. The Belgian collective of architects and designers attempted to recycle a site and a space in order to give it back to the inhabitants. Pizzo Sella, a picturesque slope in the vicinity of Palermo, is the location in question, where developers began erecting a housing estate in the 1980s. But the construction was never completed, and the artists turned the hollow concrete structures, which are marks of trauma today, into platform-like viewpoints, so producing a unique experience. A reversed perspective, besides offering magnificent outlooks, may contribute to reinstating the human and nature symbiosis. The success of the chosen method is a result of an empathetic research attitude to the materials found in the area. Repurposing destroyed buildings is, to me, an example of the ancient practice of appropriation referred to as spolia. Those I wish to define broadly: as secondary, or reclaimed substances that make cognition possible for a body situated in a relation with the world.