Antonio Della Guardia
Nuove Geometrie di Esistenza
2026 – 2027
Antonio Della Guardia
Nuove Geometrie di Esistenza
2026 – 2027
Nuove Geometrie di Esistenza (Ivrea/Pozzuoli) is a performance emerging from Antonio Della Guardia’s research project Nuove Geometrie di Esistenza, supported by the Italian Council programme (14th edition, 2025). Through a performative mapping of the Olivetti industrial complexes in Ivrea and Pozzuoli, the project investigates the relationships between architecture, the body, and the transformations of contemporary work, bringing the cultural and social legacy of the Olivetti model into dialogue with current configurations of production.
The research originates from the study of two emblematic sites in the history of Italian industry. In Ivrea, Adriano Olivetti’s vision shaped a model of development in which technological innovation, welfare, and the quality of the built environment contributed to the construction of a new idea of community. In Pozzuoli, the same vision is expressed through a particular attention to the relationship between architecture and landscape: the industrial complex, designed to maintain a constant dialogue with the sea and the surrounding territory, conceives work as an experience capable of integrating productive, cultural, and human dimensions. Developed in collaboration with the Associazione Archivio Storico Olivetti, the project is grounded in the analysis of documents, photographs, drawings, audiovisual materials, and testimonies that reveal the complexity of one of the most significant entrepreneurial experiences of the twentieth century. Through these sources, Antonio Della Guardia critically examines the Olivetti model in light of the transformations of contemporary work and their consequences on both individual and collective bodies.
The performance translates this research into a choreographic and sonic score in which two performers interact with images of the Olivetti complexes in Ivrea and Pozzuoli, created by the artist during the research process. Projected into the space, these architectures become an active performative device: the volumes, geometries, and rhythms of the working environments guide the movement of the bodies, generating a dynamic relationship between human presence and built space. Through the encounter between the performers’ gestures and places that embody a conception of work attentive to cultural, social, and human dimensions, the performance opens up a reflection on contemporary forms of production and on the possibility of imagining new modes of relation between body, architecture, and work. In this sense, Nuove Geometrie di Esistenza proposes a critical reinterpretation of industrial heritage as a space still capable of questioning the present.
The first public presentation of the research, Nuove Geometrie di Esistenza (Ivrea/Pozzuoli), took place on 23 April 2026 at the Duomo at OGR Torino, cultural partner and co-producer of this phase of the project.
Over the coming years, the project will continue through a series of international stages involving Buenos Aires and São Paulo, culminating in 2027 with a final presentation within BIENALSUR and the acquisition of the work by MAMbo – Museum of Modern Art of Bologna.
Supported by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture within the Italian Council program (14th edition, 2025).
Nuove Geometrie di Esistenza
by Antonio Della Guardia
curated by Benedetta Casini, with scientific coordination by studioconcreto
Production: studioconcreto
In partnership with: Associazione Archivio Storico Olivetti
With cultural partnership of: OGR Torino, MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna, PROA21, FONTE, BIENALSUR, VIAINDUSTRIAE
Performers: Emanuela Aprea, Giorgia Taglialatela Scafati; Francesco Lo Presti, Domenico Calabrese
Sound design: Gabriel Fischer
Video operator and editor: Marcos Mendivil