What happened this summer at Centrale Fies
“We explore whether a cake can become more than just a treat: can it be a bold, chaotic, and revolutionary landscape?” interview with Barbara Boninsegna, artistic director and founder of Centrale Fies
Centrale Fies: the project
Centrale Fies is a research center for contemporary performance practices located in Dro (Trento), within an early 20th-century hydroelectric power plant, some of which is still active, owned by Hydro Dolomiti Energia. The project, started in 1999 by Barbara Boninsegna, Dino Sommadossi and Cooperativa il Gaviale, is the first example in Italy of industrial archeology for artistic and cultural purposes. The format focuses on practices, methods and production related to performing arts with a program of performances, exhibitions and various forms of gathering such as clubbing, workshops, a free school, talks. Every summer, at the end of the year’s residency, many events occur in an only apparently marginal zone, territorially and artistically.
A territory that positions itself, instead, right at the center of the ever-changing artistic scene representing the multitude of performing arts, enabling sense-making through presence and exchange. Starting from topics such as intersectional feminisms and decolonity, and moving away from mainstream narratives, Centrale Fies’ decolonial vision turns into action. It generates tools to facilitate the access to complex subjects to the active participants. The project repeats itself every year, yet never repeats itself. Centrale Fies becomes the incubator and testimony for every year’s ephemeral gathering. To grasp an insight of its fundamentals and this year’s edition we spoke to Barbara Boninsegna, artistic director and founder of Centrale Fies.
Barbara Boninsegna, artistic director and founder of Centrale Fies.
«Over the past decades, we conducted artistic research behind closed doors and then presented the results in a compressed and explosive festival format. In order to better align programming with the center’s mission and reveal the cultural lines on which we work, we felt a change was needed. We have expanded the programming timeframe by dedicating each block to a project with specific curatorial characteristics. The new format allows us to open up to audiences the heart of the artistic research that takes place here all year round, to get to know it in its folds, to find spaces for in-depth study through free schools both in the summer months and at other times of the year, in absolute continuity.
«This has changed the way Centrale Fies was seen and experienced by the public: today it is a place to return to over and over again, to come and train, to explore the contemporary within and beyond artistic languages. The process required continuous experimentation and a few years of settling in, even in the audiences who are now familiar with what is in effect annual programming», claims the artistic director Barbara Boninsegna.
The link with the territory and it’s unrepeatability
«Centrale Fies has been an integral part of the territory since its origins. The whole project was born here on the initiative of what forty years ago was a local community of young people to arrive then, twenty years later, to regenerate a place of great social and historical value, now back for the benefit of the territory in another form. In the province of Trento and its cultural ecosystem, we are the entity that deals with a very precise segment of contemporary performing arts. We dedicate ourselves to the support of an equally precise moment in the artistic career. The center’s long history and experience have also led it to be a point of reference for innovation not only in the arts but also in strategic areas of the territory, whose reference institutions-both public and private-engage us to stimulate a cultural vision in key sectors, from agriculture to tourism», explains Barbara Boninsegna.
Centrale Fies takes its steps from the forty-year experience of drodesera, the festival born in the 1980s in what is the first example in Italy of industrial archeology for artistic and cultural purposes. Centrale Fies is not a festival; it’s a series of performances, exhibitions, clubbing, lectures, a free school, an open garden and talks, running through the whole summer, transforming the center into a place for in-depth analysis and amplification of current issues brought into the public discourse through the work of the artists selected during the annual residency. Performance practices are pushed towards new outcomes to mark their singularity and therefore unrepeatable nature. A year’s work is unveiled, but the program can change during the three summer events; the curatorial board and artists transformed a research center into an active and porous platform by using the body in its many collective ways, thanks to the diversity of languages spoken by the artists, as they moved from macro contemporary topics to practice.
Performance Art
«We cultivate an interest in what is historically defined as Performance Art: the performative afferent to the visual arts that lies between two expressive areas and that today is an area that has further expanded and that we also monitor through specific projects such as Live Works. On the other hand, the artistic practices we look at and intercept are based on very long and vertical research processes that interrogate language, never conceiving it as given, and this leads to mutations, evolutions, sometimes to abandonment in favor of languages different from those that you practiced perhaps for years or on which you built your training. We accompany these processes, we support study, we value discards and tensions to experience other and elsewhere».
«All this stems from the fact that we are interested in the performative as thought, rather than as language per se: the idea of action in space and time can decline in many ways, in relation and reaction to what are the characteristics and instances of the time in which we live. The ideas of space and time in this century have changed and continue to change. This in itself opens up endless expressive possibilities: the multiplicity of ways and possibilities through which action is accomplished is the territory we explore, without formal limits. Over time, the curatorial model has also changed: I am interested in discussion, confrontation, and the intersection of vision. This has led Centrale Fies to now have an extended curatorial board within which different skills and looks meet and which includes visual art curator Simone Frangi, researcher and lecturer in sociology Mackda Ghebremariam Tesfaù, two visual and performance artists and curators such as Justin Randolph Thompson and Filippo Andreatta», adds Barbara Boninsegna.
This year’s activation and MATERIAL SELF
This year’s edition, from 18 July to 21 September 2024, opened with Live Works Summit the collective performative exhibition featuring Sonia Kacem, Sandra Mujinga, Caroline Achaintre, Julien Creuzet, Benni Bosetto, Rehema Chachage, Chiara Bersani that looks at the different ways of reactivating artworks through performance. To explains this year’s theme, Virginia Sommadossi’s story and the pastry and cake designer Hana Betakova were evoked:
«This summer at Centrale Fies, we embrace the essence of Desire through the act of togetherness and celebration. Whether it’s a return, a life change, a rebirth, or even a farewell, these moments encompass all desires—both expressed and hidden. We explore whether a cake can become more than just a treat: can it be a bold, chaotic, and revolutionary landscape? Can it challenge norms and express new perspectives?
Artist and pastry chef Hana Betakova’s creations transform edible matter into radical, colorful, and emotionally charged forms. Her manifesto cakes defy traditional aesthetics and reflect a departure from the pristine, normative white cakes of the Victorian era, which symbolize power and colonialism. Instead, Betakova’s cakes are rich, thought-provoking, and defy mass production. They embody queer thoughts and diverse bodies, merging the sacred with the profane and the natural with the artificial. These unique, imperfect creations evoke new flavors and desires, presenting a fresh take on both beauty and expression».
Within the context of the Live Works Summit 2024, Centrale Fies launched the second episode of a trilogy of performative exhibitions, curated by Barbara Boninsegna and Simone Frangi, dedicated to the concepts expressed in the theoretical work of neo- materialist feminist thinker Stacy Alaimo in her book Bodily Natures: Science, Environment, and the Material Self from 2010, framing the action and meaning of “material forces” and their interfaces with human bodies. Material Self is explained by co-curator Simone Frangi:
«Material Self is the second exhibition in a series exploring Stacy Alaimo’s theoretical concepts. Building on the 2023 focus on the “naked word,” this year’s show examines the “material self” from Alaimo’s 2010 essay, Bodily Natures: Science, Environment, and the Material Self. It explores how material forces interact with human bodies and their impact. The exhibition addresses key questions: What does it mean to be human in an interconnected world? How does our body respond to these pervasive material forces and their effects? Reflecting post-anthropocentric feminist thought, Material Self suggests that our evolving relationship with nature has transformed our sense of self, altering concepts of home and our connection to the environment».
FEMINIST FUTURES and apap – advancing performing arts project
Feminist Futures is the second episode, curated by Barbara Boninsegna and Filippo Andreatta, born within the framework of apap_advancing performing art project, one of the longest-running European networks dedicated to performing art, focusing on the feminist-inspired transformations of the practices and organisational forms of the other 11 partner entities. The network exists since 2000. Funded by different EU cultural programmes, apap has managed to collaborate continuously on supporting a high number of artists as well as developing new formats according to changing artistic practices and needs throughout the years. Barbara Boninsegna explains the collaboration with apap and interest at the core of the second episode Feminist Futures:
«Our collaboration with apap dates back to the early days of the network, which we’ve been part of for twenty years. This partnership has been continuous and has intensified with our shared goals and thematic interests. Our work has long had an international scope, essential to our mission. Over time, we’ve built and strengthened relationships, particularly with European partners, allowing us to support valuable productions and engage in meaningful exchanges.
FEMINIST FUTURES reflects our commitment to intersectional feminism, adapting its programming to fit various contexts and missions. Centrale Fies focuses on creating a meaningful space for clubbing within this framework. The Feminist Futures club showcases international female artists who challenge traditional genres and explore new, inclusive forms. Each performance invites diverse interpretations and engages audiences with its unique perspectives».
EVOLVING LOVE: the final chapter
The programme continues with Evolving Love (Sept. 19 – 21) curated by Centrale Fies, that sees a love in perpetual evolution with realities of the Italian contemporary performance scene that have with Centrale Fies a relationship of care, exchange and common path. With Collettivo Cinetico, Anagoor, Sergi Casero Nieto of Fies Factory, Vashish Soobah and Elena Rivoltini of FONDO-the new network for emerging creativity coordinated by Santarcangelo dei Teatri-are the artists who will close the summer programming, and OHT, Davide Savorani, Marco d’Agostin, Giulia Crispiani, Mali Weil, and Giulia Damiani. The upcoming events are explained by Barbara Boninsegna:
«Evolving Love is a wide-open door on the becoming of performative processes: from open studios, then moments of encounter with formalizations still in progress (OHT, Marco D’Agostin, Mali Weil), to works that incorporate becoming in their very nature such as BROMIO by Anagoor and Age by Collettivo Cinetico that here re-occur with others and other performers, or Sergi Casero Nieto with a work that involves the audience in an uninterrupted movement. Alongside these are Elena Rivoltini and Vashish Soobah who present the outcomes of processes supported for a year by the Italian network FONDO, coordinated by Santarcangelo dei Teatri. Another form of becoming is Davide Savorani’s durational performance that will welcome the audience into an uninterrupted space and flow of work and life. Giulia Crispiani returns with “Ricantare amore,” a moment of encounter with her writing and voice in continuity with the previous year’s performance: again a discourse that evolves, without ever repeating itself. Giulia Damiani’s work, Heart Breake, also marks the current landing place of a rigorous research that from Nemesiache led her back to the roots of her family history».
«We immerse ourselves in this programming by offering the audience some tools to imagine what precedes and will follow what is happening, and of which we are part at that precise moment. Evolving Love is a continuation of a discourse begun in 2023 with Enduring Love, the focus of which was continuity over time, the duration of the relationship of care and growth that binds Centrale Fies to some of those artists who have found here a multi-year point of reference for the development of their practice. Evolving Love expands this concept by emphasizing the overflowing and irreducible richness of these all-different relationships, and how they find value in change, in mutual evolution that is not always-or never-linear. Such is the case with Hana Betakova’s cakes: decomposed, polished, unrepeatable one-off pieces».
The (non) magazine: TELL MUM THE SPELL WORKED
An attempt of registration of the traces of the every-changing manifestation is Tell Mum The Spell Worked, the magazine that will chronicle each year the achievements, challenges and stumbles of a place in perpetual transformation such as Centrale Fies is released. A valuable collection of projects and practices that start from the research center and connect with other artistic fields and disciplines. Testimonies of the power of ephemerality and sense-making. Barbara Boninsegna adds:
«Tell Mum The Spell Worked was created to bring out the continuities between the various projects of Centrale Fies and to make audiences participate in what are the thought processes, the debates that underlie our work. Just as the format of the programming has evolved, the (non)magazine is the evolution of the festival booklet: in order to tell what we are today and keep track of it, it was necessary to widen the view to the whole year, to give space to the in-depth analysis and the plurality of voices that cross the center».
Centrale Fies: a process for the future
Barbara Boninsegna explains how Centrale Dies is much more than a festival, but a process that is constantly activated all year long, with the purpose of blurring the lines between disciplines, deepening and broadening the notion of identity through collectivness:
«For several years now, the summer programming that ends in September slides directly into a series of other openings and activities, especially a free school, that deepen and layer the major themes that inhabit the center at that time until the following spring, and of which we first feel the need for a shared study. It is a time for us and for different communities and publics for a common questioning, for comparing language, positions, possibilities. From Mali Weil’s School of Interspecies Diplomacy and Lycanthropic Studies to Witches Brand New Self, we call together a wide variety of skills and experiences. We thus enter into highly articulated landscapes, embracing the idea that in order to illuminate what is happening and what we want to make happen, it is necessary to make a collective effort of understanding and alchemical composition of even very distant sides of knowledge».
Eugenia Pacelli
