Red Lab Gallery's Salento Residency Fuses Territory and Memory in 'Chiedete al vento'

At Casamassella in Salento, Red Lab Gallery's residency program has produced 'Chiedete al vento, all'onda, alla stella, all'uccello', a project by Agata Ferrari Bravo and Thomas Michael Saccuman with an intervention by Flavio Favelli, curated by Leonardo Regano. The centerpiece is a large bird-cart sculpture made from papier-mâché, fragments of festive lights (luminarie), and found objects collected locally. Designed to be disassembled and reactivated, the work is a mobile hybrid between sculpture and performance. Favelli's intervention strips the luminarie of their illuminating function, transforming them into a suspended environment that amplifies the piece's ambiguous, ritualistic dimension. The artists describe their process as an archaeological search for discarded elements, intensified by the local landscape of dry olive trees, quarries, and caves. The project references the Persian poem 'The Conference of the Birds', where thirty birds discover their reflection as the mythical Simurgh. Favelli notes his work creates a spiritual, almost religious atmosphere, contrasting with his usual practice. The residency emphasizes a nomadic approach, with the bird-cart intended to travel and transform across different contexts.