“On the Air” by Roxy in the Box is an installation created as part of the “Cantieri Montelupo” project, of the Montelupo Museum Foundation, curated by Christian Caliandro at Montelupo Fiorentino, Florence.
Once again, thanks to the “Toscanaincontemporanea” Competition, the Regione Toscana has thrown its weight behind “Cantieri Montelupo,” an initiative spearheaded by the Montelupo Museum Foundation and curated by Christian Caliandro.
“Toscanaincontemporanea” has always sought to champion and promote contemporary visual art by supporting projects that produce contemporary art and disseminate knowledge of it by engaging local communities and the territory.
For the third annual “Cantieri Montelupo”, four residencies held between June 2023 and February 2024 saw the active involvement of local ceramists and the entire community of Montelupo Fiorentino. The ensuing dialogue was intense and fruitful for the artists in residence, despite their having no previous experience with ceramics (artists with backgrounds far different from that of ceramic manufacturing are deliberately selected). With no preconceived notions, they engage with this material and the historical and cultural experience that ceramic manufacturing represents in the area, thanks to the hands, eyes and craft of local craftspeople and residents.
This year’s endeavor was characterized by the work of the photographer Maria Palmieri who, working with Patrizio Bartoloni, made a groundbreaking innovation: photoceramics, a radically experimental work that blends photography and ceramic making.
In her two-part installation entitled “On the Air” co-created with Ivana Antonini and Marco Ulivieri, Roxy in the Box has focused on the relationship between Montelupo Fiorentino and the Medici villa of Ambrogiana, which was converted into a criminal asylum during the Lorraine Period and operated as an OPG (Judicial Psychiatric Hospital) from the 1970s until 2017. The work investigates the fusion between individual memory and the collective memory of the town.
Eugenio Giani
President of Regione Toscana
the complete installation entitled “ON THE AIR” is made up of five ceramic megaphones “WE ARE ALL DEAF” and an armchair surrounded by a flowering ceramic rose bush “HOW MANY ROSES HAVE A NAME?“. At the base of the armchair there are hand-painted tiles, the result of the workshop held by Roxy in the Box, in collaboration with Ivana Antonini and Marco Ulivieri called “Fornace del Museo” held between 9 and 16 September 2023.
The workshop that I present to the community of Montelupo Fiorentino is mainly aimed at the individual or collective memory of this place. I’ll ask people to bring me a ceramic object from home that perhaps no longer gives them comfort. In addition, I’ll ask them to bring in a family photo – it can be as old as the last century – which can then transfer, in whole or part, onto a tile or briquet…
My workshop is akin to a family research project: it starts within the walls of home and then comes to me.Roxy in the Box