presentation:

Heterotopia, 1 year walking

with Joseph Marzolla and Melanie Bonajo

20 Oct 2019

Artist Joseph Marzolla is currently working on his Heterotopia project for which he uses walking as an artistic practice, to finalise the writing of a book and the making of a film.

He left his home in Paris to walk to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. He walked from Lourdes to Marseille, then to Rome and later to Brindisi in South Italy. He has so far travelled nearly 5500 km. The idea is to go even further in Europe, to cross Asia, to reach Japan and walk the pilgrimage of the 88 temples of Shikoku. But now, after making a pitstop for a show in Antwerp, he will arrive in Amsterdam.

The 20th of October, artist Melanie Bonajo and Joseph Marzolla will have a dialogue about Heterotopia in Mediamatic.

Free Entrance / Facebook

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Joseph Marzolla during his walk -

The idea of using walking as an artistic practice, is to work autonomously through Europe and Asia by writing and filming his everyday life. He wants to achieve a specific creative state detached from any form of ego by physically crossing landscapes, meeting people or by approaching philosophical practices. He wants to reunite with nature by a possible nomadic life and a quest for alternative life patterns.

Behind all this, there is the idea of abandoning oneself to live without seeking to control every detail. The relation to time changes, we focus on the essential. Slowness predominates and sharpens our senses. It is an act of resistance, a way to demonstrate that other ways exist.

It was during these many hikes that these reflections appeared to him. A need to question his artistic practice with the idea that it is surely naive to find a certain truth. Perhaps also to not let himself sink into an intoxicating and comfortable routine. Walking a long distance puts you away from society while being in the best place to observe it.

Walking is a symbiosis between body and mind. A fight won against time. The evolution of modern life and speed as a dominant value have partly stifled the act of walking. Yet they manage to free us from the illusions of the indispensable, from a world of excessive and polluting consumption that we let us carry literally as well as figuratively.

Information

Heterotopia, 1 year walking
An evening discussion with Joseph Marzolla and Melanie Bonajo

Sunday the 20th of October, 18:00
Mediamatic Biotoop, Dijksgracht 6, Amsterdam

Free Entrance