The Fountains of Za’atari
For the 2019 Fotografia Europea Collezione Maramotti presents The Fountains of Za’atari, a multidimensional project from artist Margherita Moscardini that has been in development since 2015, based on research into refugee camps as urban spaces that are destined to last.
The Za’atari refugee camp was founded in Jordan in 2012 to house Syrians fleeing conflict in their home country. Moscardini worked to produce an inventory of the courtyards with fountains that residents have built inside their homes, with the goal of producing a catalogue of the courtyards in book form.
This project aims to establish a virtuous system through which European governments and institutions can buy these fountains/sculptures, the designer from the camp benefitting from the sale. The sculptures should receive special jurisdiction that includes elements of extraterritoriality, which over time would qualify them as spaces where the law does not apply.
In Reggio Emilia Moscardini’s project establishes itself as a fully-functioning system, with the first public sculpture in one of the city’s parks – supported by the Collection and welcomed in a spirit of collaboration by the local Municipality –, an artist’s book narrating the project’s themes and expanding on them in various directions and a temporary show at the Collection.
BIO
Margherita Moscardini (Donoratico, Tuscany, 1981) investigates the relationships in specific geographies between transformation processes in the urban, social and natural order. Her art is process-driven and favours long-term projects, and comprises large-scale works, drawings, writings, models and video-documents.
In recent years she has designed several temporary works for Italian public spaces (many of which were never actually implemented) that question the role of the arts and the concept of public space in our cities.
Her major projects include Istanbul City Hills – On the Natural History of Dispersion and States of Aggregation (2013) and 1XUnknown (1942-2018, to Fortress Europe with Love) (2012-2018).
Moscardini studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna and attended the 14th Advanced Course in Visual Arts at Fondazione Antonio Ratti in Como with Yona Friedman. Over the years she has been worked on long-term projects as a guest artist at CCA Today, Plovdiv, Bulgaria (2011); Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris (2012); Fondazione Pastificio Cerere, Rome (2012-2013); MMCA Changdong, Seoul (2014); ISCP, New York (2015). In 2015 she was named a fellow of the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America, Columbia University, New York.
