NESSUN DORMA | Installation by David Reimondo and Alessandro Sciaraffa
From May 28 to June 18, 2023, Giardini dell’Annunziata at the Advanced School of Musical Training – Saluzzo. Curated by Alessandro Carrer and Clemente Miccichè.
On the occasion of the seventh edition of StArt/Arte, dedicated to the theme of Essentiality, the Garuzzo Foundation presents Nessun Dorma, a site-specific intervention by David Reimondo and Alessandro Sciaraffa. The two artists engage in a dialogue with the space of the inner courtyard of the Advanced School of Musical Training, creating a joint work—an original installation produced specifically for Saluzzo’s main cultural event.
The installation Nessun Dorma plays with the immaterial aspects of art, in a continuous interaction between the visual and sonic spheres, transforming the inner courtyard of the APM—already a natural stage—into a space for interaction with the public and with the renowned Saluzzo institution. The work emerges from a mechanism of contrasts, in which stability and movement, sound and light, classicism and contemporaneity all contribute to engaging the audience and encouraging reflection on multiple levels.
David Reimondo’s research focuses on themes of human existence and language; over the years, he has developed formal models to create new codes and communication systems. Alessandro Sciaraffa’s work, on the other hand, centers on sound and the many relationships between matter, space, and time, combining installation, sculpture, and performance.
At the center of the courtyard stands Alessandro Sciaraffa’s work Per Sempre e Mai Più (Forever and Never Again), a sculpture built around a pair of bells used by Puccini for Turandot and Tosca. Visitors will have the opportunity to make these extraordinary instruments resonate, their voices spreading throughout the courtyard and evoking the history they embody—from Puccini’s life to the Filettole massacre of August 1944—now enriched by a new chapter written through the intervention of the Turin-based artist. Bells are a recurring theme in Sciaraffa’s practice, first presented at Artissima in 2008 with a monumental work made of brass plates struck and played by a robotic system.
Meanwhile, David Reimondo’s work unfolds across the ground and façades of the Saluzzo school, employing two different modes of engagement to communicate through unconventional languages. On the gravel surface of the courtyard, the artist creates one of his etymographic symbols using black pebbles—an attempt to establish new relationships between signifiers and meanings, and to imagine a language that forms a more direct and authentic connection with external reality. To date, Reimondo has developed a new and personal visual vocabulary of over 400 distinct meanings. From the windows, a luminous sequence in Morse code appears—a system largely absent from common imagination and everyday use, yet still employed in specific fields such as air and maritime communication. “New languages generate new worlds,” the Morse sequence proclaims.
The overall installation invites active participation: the audience is encouraged to explore and move through the space, interacting directly with the works and continuously transforming their form and content. Different reactions will arise depending on the time of day and surrounding weather conditions, as neither the material nor the luminous and sonic components can ever be perceived in the same way. This highlights the processual and performative nature of the work, which—like Puccini’s operas—creates a unique experience with each iteration.
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