Matera Alberga: Six Hotels Become Contemporary Art Spaces for 2019

Matera Alberga, a project by Fondazione Matera-Basilicata 2019, promoted by Arteprima and the Cam – Consorzio albergatori materani and supported by Fondazione Carical, will transform six hotels in Matera, the 2019 European Capital of Culture, into venues for site-specific contemporary art installations. The project aims to use art as a stimulus for renewed hospitality, encounter, and coexistence. Conceived by Francesco Cascino and curated with Christian Caliandro, Matera Alberga will feature works that evoke the old Vicinati dei Sassi, the traditional family-based housing clusters of Matera. The first hotel to host an installation is Corte San Pietro, where on December 22, Alfredo Pirri (born in Cosenza, 1957) will unveil IDRA, a permanent participatory work in the hotel's underground cisterns. Pirri's installation, set in one of eight interconnected cisterns, includes a four-meter-diameter glass floor called 'Passi' that visitors can walk on, with an acoustic component that uses the geometry of the cavern. A hole connects the cistern to the surface, where a stratified crystal disc with feathers filters light between the underground and the street level. Pirri describes the work as an 'Istituto Di Ricerca Anime' (Institute for Research of Souls), aiming to connect the parallel lives of Matera's underground water system and its above-ground life. The project will continue to develop in the coming years with the hotelier.