CARVICO WELCOMES NET POSITIVE. THE TEXTILE COMPANY, HEADQUARTERED IN THE DISTRICT OF BERGAMO, HOSTS THE SITE-SPECIFIC INSTALLATION BY PATERA&SBRA PEREGO MADE OF OVER 10 KILOMETERS OF FABRIC STRIPES
The main hall of the historical site of Carvico, market leader in the production of warp-knit performance fabrics and symbol of an industrial model based on quality, welfare and beauty, has been turned into the shrine hosting Net Positive, a site-specific installation made by Federica Patera & Andrea Sbra Perego.
It is an environmental art piece taking art inside the workplace, transforming a reception area into a sensorial, immersive experience. Net Positive is meant to be a sign of openness: an invitation to plunge into an imaginary place mixing production, creativity and responsibility.
The installation draws inspiration from fyke nets, ancient fishing nets made of cylindrical mesh bags, re-interpreted by the authors to turn them into a poetic landscape. The pillars constituting the artwork emerge like marine creatures: vibrant weaves evoking corals and seafloors. Viewers’ eyes are led towards the highest part of the work where shapes get increasingly lighter turning into suspended clouds, a fluid transition from water to air, weight and lightness, origin and transformation.
The event core is the material itself: Net Positive is handmade with Vita by Carvico, a fabric made of 100% regenerated nylon from pre- and post-consumer waste. Over 2.500 fabric stripes of different shades, totaling up to 10 Kilometers, have been manually cut, extended and intertwined to create a 150 m² net, a flexible, wraparound, organic architecture. The work comprises several different interconnected elements which can adapt to the hosting space and dialogue with it.
The partnership between Carvico and Federica Patera & Andrea Sbra Perego stems from previous experiences in which the artists used Carvico’s fabrics to create other installations, thus developing a deep knowledge of the materials and their potential.
The choice of positioning the work at the entrance of the company office building is intended to reinforce its meaning: Net Positive becomes a place where connections are generated, new journeys are born and new paths cross. As the title suggests, the installation becomes a metaphor of a positive relationship, a network of rapports, energies and opportunities which come alive inside space and among people.
Thanks to Net Positive, Carvico wants to reconfirm its commitment to consider art as part of people’s daily life and work: a tool generating a vision, wellbeing and awareness. A concrete example of how art can inhabit production sites and, thanks to its transformational power, turn them into space of experience, relationship and future.
Federica Patera & Andrea Sbra Perego: literature and art linked by a thread. A partnership blending their experiences into a common work which is meant to be both a bridge and a meeting point between the two disciplines. This unexpected duo was officially created in 2017 with the RAR project, focusing on the value of analogy in literature. At the heart of the research lies the dynamic which turns reading into writing, and viceversa; the user becomes a demonstrator first and finally a writer, mixing roles. Such exchange ensures the transfer of contents, which goes beyond their mere reproduction and repetition and finds completion in transformation. Artworks achieve eternity as long as they turn into fertile basins stimulating understanding and intuition. In 2021 they opened DRIM | Contemporary art ground, an artist run space in the center of Turin dedicated to research, studying, the creation of partnerships, hybridization and experimentation. In one year, they organized, curated and financed a total of 8 exhibitions, both personal and collective, about national and international artists.
