Alessandro Bulgini's Taranto Opera Viva 2019: A Turquoise Boat, Golden Railings, and Urban Care

In May 2019, artist Alessandro Bulgini returned to his hometown of Taranto for the fourth edition of his ongoing project "Taranto Opera Viva," a month-long autonomous residency in the historic center. Bulgini, who lives in Turin, wears his signature red uniform and focuses on reactivating relationships with the local community through small, poetic gestures. The centerpiece is "Relitto sul Mar Piccolo," a turquoise boat with white polka dots in a Tiffany style, left stranded a few hundred meters from the shore on the Mar Piccolo. The boat was noticed and Instagrammed by musician Patti Smith and her daughter Jesse Paris Smith, who were in Taranto for the Medimex festival. Other interventions include rebuilding a boat for a young fisherman, painting scaffolding that supports crumbling buildings in the Old City with a six-pointed star motif, and rescuing a children's playhouse from a dumpster, repainting it red as a relational space for rethinking the concept of home. Bulgini also created "Ringhiera d'oro" (Golden Railing), a mystical railing defending the old walls of the Old City. The project transforms debris into monuments and potential decay into lyricism: a wooden scaffold becomes a portrait, fishing nets become urban sculpture, and a collection of beer crates becomes a monolith.