land in suspension
a poem
1968
On January 15th 1968, an earthquake shook western Sicily – destroying four towns
Christmas at Gibellina, Joesph Beuys Mimmo Jodice (1981)
Belice earthquake seismogram 15/1/68 00:08 (UTC) USGS Earthquake Hazards Program of the U.S. Geological Survey
completely
Seconds of
destruction shattered centuries of deprivation in the Belice valley Belice earthquake seismogram 15/1/68 01:47 (UTC) USGS Earthquake Hazards Program of the U.S. Geological Survey
simultaneously unleashing Teatro Consagra in ruins Gibellina, 2017
decades of wholesale reconstruction
The Sicilian Basal Thrust
) lid (so e or rc
In ne
Outer core
0 km 510
Belice Valley
0 km
(liqu id)
290 0k m
Sicilian Basal Th rust
Earth
Crust
30 k m
100 km
resting from earth’s surface
0 / 6378 km
Centre of the Earth
30 km deep had finally stirred after geological epochs of sleep
The Sicilian Basal Thrust Relative to Earth’s strata
Nuova Gibellina
4 km 18 km 4 km
Nuova Poggioreale
Nuova Salaparuta
Beli c e me u Fi
2 km
Nuova Montevago
a small adjustment of the ground warranted
Rome
to relocate
Gibellina, Salaparuta, Montevago and Poggioreale at distances of 18,
Relocations of Gibellina, Salaparuta, Poggioreale and Montevago
4
and 2 km
The force of seismic energy and utopian reconstruction brings into being
Land of Suspension Ruins of Poggioreale, 2017
a new Zone –
land
in
suspension
suspended from centuries of cultivation in the Lavuratori’s cycles of wheat suspended from the decade of colonisation in the Fascist regime’s reclamation of the countryside
Lavuratori and The Cycle of Wheat Gianni Nastasi (1982)
suspended –
Colonisation of the Belice Valley, 1939 Agency for Agrarian Colonisation of Sicilian Large Estates
from use –
in the new abandoned cultural institutions, at the sites of ruination (the paths between concrete swathes fallow land and cultivated land) at Burri’s Cretto
Cretto, Gibellina 2015 Google Earth
Cretto, Alberto Burri Gibellina, 2017
where dogs roam freely
four seasons and new towns
of land in suspension between the grounds of the ruins
GIBELLINA
Gibellina,
at the height of Mayor Corrao’s summer, architects (Ungers Purini, Gregotti, Venezia) came and left signatures, unfinished and empty
artists, (Beuys Mendini, Burri, Consagra)
two thousand gifts for four thousand people cherished or unwanted
GIBELLINA
Christmas at Gibellina, 2017
From top, left to right: Meeting, Pietro Consagra, 1976 (Mimmo Jodice, 1981); Progetto per il centro di Gibellina, O. M. Ungers (Rossella Bigi, 1990); Chiesa Madre, Ludivico Quaroni, 1972 (Giovanni Chiaramonte, 1990); Museo a Gibellina, Francesco Venezia (Giovanni Chiaramonte, 1990); Il Municipio, Vittorio Gregotti, Giuseppe Samonà, 1972 (Christmas, 2017); Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, (Christmas, 2017)
From top, left to right: Stella d’ingresso al Belice, Pietro Consagra (Mimmo Jodice, 1981); Torre civica, Alessandro Mendini (Giovanni Chiaramonte, 1990); La vera medicina è l’eternità, Bruno Ceccobelli (October, 2017), Arato, Arnaldo Pomodoro (December, 2017); Renaissance, Daneil Spoerri (December, 2017); Città del Sole, Mimmo Rotella (December, 2017); Per Gibellina, Mauro Staccioli (December, 2017)
GIBELLINA
Teatro Consagra on one end, lavori in corso; work in progress the town’s nucleus without audience nor play an empty stage Cretto on the other, strata of deserted layers of time a fresh layer of paint over cracks and lichen plateaus for new vistas Teatro Consagra Nuova Gibellina 2017
Cretto, Alberto Burri Gibellina, 2017
GIBELLINA
GIBELLINA 1984
The fences of Teatro Consagra are removed,
300
the stage
for the first time,
1968
ever open –
18 km
Tractors move debris from the Teatro to the site of the ruins
2014
and return to the new town with nothing 1989
2015
Steps to reach the surface of the Cretto For the one who haunts the cracks and the one to lock its gaze
2018
to the eyes of the only remaining house
2015
1989
1984
GIBELLINA 1984
S A L A PA RU TA
Salaparuta, where winter sleeps and the Archive of Reconstruction
falls into amnesia
Archive of Reconstruction Nuova Salaparuta 2017
its contents still quivering from the excess of violence on the drawing board locked away
Archive of Reconstruction Nuova Salaparuta, 2017
S A L A PA RU TA
S A L A PA RU TA
Nearby, languishes an open archive at a carpark edge of town discarded, a heap –
Fragments of Chiesa Madre at Nuova Salaparuta Domenica Sutera, 2017
elements of the turreted facade of Chiesa Madre (the last of Sicilian Baroque in Western Sicily)
remnants from 4 km away at the shadow town
steps to her nave, (the summit of all Belice’s ruins) Chiesa Madre Ruins of Salaparuta, 2017
shipwreck on promontory
S A L A PA RU TA
S A L A PA RU TA
1749 2018
1749
Unlock the doors to the Archive of Reconstruction –
2001
4 km
50 years
box folders and scrolls to be moved into nomadic libraries that traverse the
constellation of eight sites, beginning from the nave of Salaparuta’s Chiesa Madre
Fragments of her facade from in the backyard of the new town
4 centuries past, languishing
form a estranged always from for future survey
1721
1777
lapidarium
1664 1749 1968
its origin
S A L A PA RU TA
M O N T E VA G O
Montevago, the autumn of harvesting
the crop of ruins kept
aside
open-air reserves of rubble open for trespass overgrown almost indistinguishable in Ruins of Montevago, 2017
for inhabitants 2 km
disintegration
down the road no fetishes to be revered
M O N T E VA G O
M O N T E VA G O
rubble, like limestone from the nearby quarry, material, obtained by rupture seismic and sheer will for construction, imprinted with its secret negativity.
Limestone Quarry at Montevago Calcestruzzi Belice
M O N T E VA G O
339 BC
M O N T E VA G O
1826
1600
In the year the ground once by seismic force
1968
shifted
1930
1931
1899
second by the drill of extraction, a new quarry founded in the same year.
1881
1995
1968
two quarries, left in the wake of the momentous shifts on a January evening, weathering in the decades
Now, intermingling of stone, concrete and clay, ripe for use Gabions, of debris already crushed by time reinforcements in the new town
M O N T E VA G O
2018
The opening of one for limestone, another, the rubble
once more
next door
POGGIOREALE
Poggioreale, the spring of the afterlives
of the most intact seismic ruination,
and ideological ruination
4 km away from Portoghesi’s postmodern redux of Piazza Elimo Piazza Elimo Nuova Poggioreale, 2017
the 15th century town waits, behind gates discouraging unauthorized entry upon the soil
soil, untended and stony yet enough for those species that need very little,
Soil Monolith from UBC monolith collection Subgroup: Cumulic Regosol (C.UR.) Great group: Regosol Order: Regosol
Piazza Elimo Ruins of Poggioreale, 2017
almost nothing
POGGIOREALE
POGGIOREALE
very little, almost nothing, old inhabitants make small
adjustments – scaffolding, flooring –
as their forebears did before just 10 years before the earthquake a new floor for 1958 overgrown in 50 years a wild garden in need of new paths
Ailanthus Altissima Ruins of Poggioreale, 2017
amongst weeds and the pioneer
Ailanthus Altissima
Annuals, biennuals perennials,
POGGIOREALE
Chiesa di Gesù e Maria Ruins of Poggioreale, 2017
to follow, in an opening in the land of suspension a coming community
vera
Agave
americana,
Cupressus
sempervirens,
Opuntia,
Dittrichia
viscosa,
Ailanthus
Altissima,
Parietaria
judaica,
Ficus
carica,
Citrus
x
sinesis,
Citrus
x
aurantium, 1968
Pistacia
Punica
oleander,
granatum,
Nerium
POGGIOREALE
Olea europaea, Prunus dulcis,
1642
dulcis,
Nerium
Prunus
oleander,
europaea,
Pistacia
Olea
vera
granatum,
Agave
Scaffolding in compression, scaffolding as trellis – pergolas at failing structures
Punica
americana,
aurantium,
Cupressus
Citrus
x
sempervirens,
‘Gift a new flooring’ The new tiling of 1958, The new tiling of 2011,
sinesis,
Opuntia, Ailanthus
carica,
viscosa,
Citrus
x
Dittrichia
Ficus
1958
New tiling for old paths vectors of spolia leaking from Piazza Elimo
judaica,
Altissima,
Parietaria
Parietaria
Replenish soil in cracks and slips, for new species to join Ailanthus Altissima –
Altissima,
judaica, Citrus
viscosa,
carica,
Ailanthus
Ficus
POGGIOREALE
2015
x sinesis,
Citrus
x
aurantium,
Punica
granatum,
Olea
europaea,
Prunus
dulcis,
Nerium
oleander,
Pistacia
vera
Agave
americana,
Cupressus
sempervirens,
Opuntia,
Dittrichia
Opening gates to a garden already creeping into life