We interviewed Chiara Tabaroni the artistic director of Ca’ Colmello on the occasion of the residential illustration workshop “Paths of uncertainty” led by the Polish artist and illustrator Joanna Concejo scheduled from 26 to 28 July at the Ca’ Colmello House Laboratory in Sassoleone, near Bologna, as part of the seventh edition of SIA – Sottili Innesti Amorevoli, a precious review by the association Baba Jaga that brings the most interesting exponents of Italian and international artistic research to the Bologna hills.

How is the Casa Laboratorio of Ca’ Colmello of Sassoleone born? And S.I.A. – Subtle Love Pledges, which already in the name contains a profound and interesting poetic?
Ca’ Colmello is a precious, special, loved place … born from a strong and pulsating desire, in constant renewal, to create a place that is home, but also a space for art and theater, childhood and history, music and dance,  a place of residences and research … maintaining also the rural aspect, the contact with the earth (there is a small vegetable garden, the Orchard of the Custodians of ancient trees donated with love, and animals that with their profound presence remind us of the here and now…)
Ca’ Colmello is an ancient farmhouse between hills and sky that over the years we have carefully restored, it is a place where the human aspect can find breath in the meeting, in the living silence of nature and from all these combinations the S.I.A. – Thin Loving Grafts.
S.I.A is a world where you can dive, for a research workshop or a show, and let yourself be invaded …
The open horizon of the surrounding landscape fills and nourishes.

In the course of the seven editions of S.I.A have you noticed a greater interest from the public towards the proposals and the artistic searches that you select?
It is not easy to make people come up here, an isolated place among gullies and green hills. As I always say, it takes the will and the desire to reach it, slow down time, and even the journey so far will then be part of the experience. Surely in these 8 years, the rumor has spread around Italy (and also abroad) thanks to the precious word of mouth of those who have come here, and have understood and loved the spirit of this place, its fragility and strength of a real utopia outside the usual circuits and a different way of experiencing art in a broad sense.
Grateful when the poetry of presence is renewed, the sequence of the meeting never the same, the amazement of a temporary community that recognizes itself …

How important is it to “resist” and propose culture in places far from the center, in natural environments, like in the Apennines?
We are convinced that “marginal” areas, whether they are the suburbs of the cities, or particular contexts such as this, immersed in a nature still little populated, possess potentialities and urgencies of beauty to be re-discovered, triggering mechanisms of liberated admixture, meanings that are amplified as one is somehow invited to a process of dispossession.
We return to the reasons, to transparency, and fill our pockets with live breaths.
Nature anchors to itself seams of infinity that give good …

In the history of Ca’ Colmello, can you tell us about some events that you received with greater feedback?
Surely the poetry of Mariangela Gualtieri that resounded in the night, and invaded even the most hidden interstices, that voice able to unite visible and invisible, going to trace intimate mappings in a sort of shared rite, was one of the events that recalled more hearts, in the amphitheater between songs of crickets and moon.
Moreover, the Indian company Milòn Mèla, a regular guest of the various editions, overwhelms with an explosion of music, dances and colors, and is always a celebration of wonder, an ecstatic vision of beauty and ancient forms.

At the end of July you will host the Polish artist and illustrator Joanna Concejo, can you tell us something about it? How did you meet and what kind of activity will be proposed?
For years we have been following Joanna Concejo from afar, through her illustrations, and something subtle resounded inside: there is something strong and delicate at the same time, an essence, an attention to detail, a relationship with the past, the nature .. They are images that speak to those who know how to listen and observe them, they ferry into an atmosphere, they open doors to elsewhere …
We thought it would be a great meeting, and so it was: last year we wrote, and we invited it for the first time.
This summer will be the second meeting, because we love to create with the artists a bond that can be deepened, after the first acquaintance.
Being able to explore different research closely is a gift.

Some summer dates in August to remind our readers that they will visit Ca’ Colmello with curiosity?
August is the third and last intense month of the festival, and hosts 2 residential workshops: one of butoh dance with the great master Masaki Iwana and the other with the company of Indian artists Milòn Mèla in which they will explore different artistic disciplines (chhau dance, gotipua dance, kalaripayattu martial art, etc.).
In Ferragosto instead in the amphitheater under the stars Canti del Vivo concert by O Thiasos Teatro Natura with the singers and actresses Camilla Dell’Agnola (vocals, viola, dulsetta) and Valentina Turrini (vocals and drum). They are polyphonic songs performed a cappella in two voices, to draw an ideal itinerary through the sounds of nature and the voices, from Salento to Galicia, passing through Emilia Romagna and Sicily, to touch Georgia and Ukraine. At the end of the long summer up here, on August 25th the Compagnia Milòn Méla, from India, will enchant young and old with the show Naba Jagoron – Awaken acrobatic dances, tribal masks, colors, music and songs of the Orient.