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Anthropogenic Connection

Curated by Meskerem Assegued and Adriana Rispoli – Anthropogenic Connection by Eugenio Tibaldi, is a project developed between September 2019 and December 2020, in collaboration with Zoma Museum and the Institute of Italian Culture in Addis Ababa with the support of construction company Elmi Olindo& Co.
Two components sit at the heart of the project: Anthropogenic Bridge and Anthropogenic Herbarium, respectively, a permanent site specific-installation, and a series of studio-produced artifacts that represent, to an extent, an articulate travel journal/herbarium.
The project embodies the Italian artist’s working method. It is a synthesis of two stays in Addis Ababa that he used to conduct a social, anthropological and economic inquiry on the city. The organic intersections between nature and artifact, game and technic, architecture and art, are the project’s distinctive traits. They reflect a desire to connect different cultures for the production of an artwork with a hybrid identity, particularly in Anthropogenic Bridge – a playful and functional engine, resulted from an intense collaboration with local productive realms, which embodies the artist’s poetics and aesthetics of fragment and marginality. Eugenio Tibaldi is the first artist to participate in Zoma Museum’s Bridge Residency Program. His bridge is a non- bridge, ending in a slide. This makes it into a performative sculpture that invites the public to interact with it. The synthesis between nature and artifact returns in the decorative elements that imitate the lush surrounding vegetation with discarded materials.In the midst of pop colors and details, car tires, corrugated metal sheets, and plastic water jugs take the shape of flowers, agave and eucalyptus leaves. The bridge, a symbol of connection and exchange, turns into an access to a new view point –on the surrounding environment as well as on the city’s socio-economic dynamics, embracing the transformative potential of new generations.
Anthropogenic Bridge will be inaugurated on December 10th, within the context of the 16th celebration of the Day of Contemporary Art, an initiative of the Association of Italian Museums of Contemporary Art (AMACI, AssociazionedeiMuseid’artecontemporaneaitaliani). The inauguration will also host the premiere of the documentary “Eugenio Tibaldi_ Anthropogenic Connection a site specific project in Addis Ababa” produced by the Institute of Italian Culture in Addis Ababa.
Anthropogenic Connection by Eugenio Tibaldi is also the last chapter of the project “Under the Spell of Africa” curated by Adriana Rispolibetween 2019 and 2020,part of the program Italia Cultura Africa of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and InternationalCooperation. The complete project involved the work of Raffaela Mariniello in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, and Flavio Favelli in Cape Town, South Africa. It is based on the idea of cultural exchange and osmosis through art, with the objective to stimulate relationships and mutual influences between the participating artists and the locality where they worked.

Eugenio Tibaldi
Eugenio Tibaldi (Alba 1977)is known internationally for his cross-disciplinary research on art, urban studies and architecture, with a focus on peripheries and their aesthetics. Using different media, Tibaldi documents and uncovers the transitions from institutional formality, economics and aesthetics that exist in given regions. He does so through a multidisciplinaryanalysis that involves directly the communities in which the process takes place.
In recent years he has worked in several cities, including Istanbul, Cairo, Rome, Thessaloniki, Berlin, Verona, Havana, Bucarest, Turin, Caracas, Brussels, Tirana and Addis Ababa. He took part in a number of international shows, exhibiting both in public and private artistic spaces, including Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Torino, (2007), Manifesta 7, Bolzano (2008), International Centre of Contemporary Art Thessaloniki, Bucarest (2009), Museo Madre, Napoli (2010), State Museum of Contemporary Art (2011), XII Biennale de L’Avana (2015), Museo Ettore Fico, Torino (2016), Palazzo del Quirinale (2017), Museum MCDA Manila, (2017), Istituto italiano di Cultura New York (2017). Museo MAXXI, Roma (2018), Biennale di Venezia, Padiglione Cuba (2019), Museo del 900 Milano (2019), Galleria Nazionale di Roma (2020).
He followed the advanced course of visual arts (CSAV) at the Fondazione Antonio Ratti, Como, attended the Domus Academy in Istanbul, and was Affiliated Fellow at the American Academy in Rome.
His works are exhibited in important public and private institutions in Italy and abroad.
After living for 15 years in Naples, he currently lives and works in Torino.

Zoma Museum Bridge Residency Program Zoma Museum has more than forty small, temporary bridges, crossing over irrigation channels, throughout its garden. The Bridge Residency Program is aimed at establishing collaborations with artists from around the world to replace these temporary, functional structures with permanent artistic bridges, symbols of creative relations between cultures of different nations.

Anthropogenic Bridge is the first bridge realized under this program. It has been built thanks to the support of the Italian Cultural Institute in Addis Ababa, in collaboration with construction company Elmi Olindo & co. The resulting artistic project, Anthropogenic Connection, has been curated by Adriana Rispoli, as part of the program Under the Spell of Africa, sponsored by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Zoma Museum
Zoma Museum is an environmentally conscious art institution, named after Zoma Shiferraw, a young Ethiopian artist who died of cancer in 1997. It was founded by contemporary artist Elias Sime and anthropologist and curator Meskerem Assegued.
Its mission is to share knowledge on innovative contemporary art and architecture with anyone from anywhere, focusing on bringing eco-sensitive ancient knowledge of art production, architecture and landscaping to the present.
Social and Environmental sustainability are at the heart of the organization’s design and planning strategy. Urban farming and permaculture, botanical conservation, accessibility, and sustainable constructions methods are the distinctive features of all Zoma Museum’s projects.
The heart and soul of Zoma Museum is its namesake. The museum located in Mekanisa, Addis Ababa is on urban farmland, previously a site of informal landfill. This museum is home to a contemporary art gallery, art library, restaurant, giftshop and children workshop, all embodying the co-founders’ futuristic interpretation of an alternative museum in sustainable vernacular buildings. The artistically landscaped gardens feature a wide range of indigenous vegetation, including vegetables, herbs and trees.
Zoma Museum is also home to Zoma School, a kindergarten and elementary school where the development of children’s creativity and natural talents are encouraged through a curriculum that incorporates gardening, cooking, music, visual arts and sign language.
Notable projects, embodying the organization artistic and social commitments include, ZOMA SCULPTED GARDEN at the Addis Ababa University Ale School of Fine Art and Design, ZOMA INDIGENOUS GARDEN at Unity Park, ZOMA CONTEMPORARY ART CENTER (ZCAC) and ZOMA VILLAGE ENTOTO, soon to be completed.

  • In collaboration with: Zoma Museum - IIC