In Casamassella, in the heart of Salento, Red Lab Gallery's residency program has produced "Chiedete al vento, all’onda, alla stella, all’uccello," a project by artists Agata Ferrari Bravo and Thomas Michael Saccuman with an intervention by Flavio Favelli, curated by Leonardo Regano. The centerpiece is a large bird-cart, a hybrid sculpture and performative device made from papier-mâché, fragments of festive lights, and objects collected from the local area, designed to be disassembled and reactivated. Favelli's installation transforms decommissioned luminarie into a suspended environment that amplifies the work's ambiguous, almost ritualistic quality.
This project matters because it exemplifies how contemporary art residencies can forge deep, material connections between artists and a region's history and landscape. By incorporating found objects and local traditions like luminarie, the work becomes a mobile organism that carries the memory of its place of origin while remaining open to transformation. The artists' nomadic practice and the collaborative, trust-based process highlight a growing trend in site-specific art that prioritizes affective relationships with place and community over static exhibition, offering a model for how art can engage with territory as both matrix and catalyst for ongoing change.