Binta Diaw's solo exhibition Del Cosmo e della Terra, curated by Ilaria Mariotti, is part of an articulated initiative by the municipality of Santa Croce sull'Arno, realized within the framework of Toscanaincontemporanea2023 and with the collaboration of Crédit Agricole Italia. Many local associations are actively involved in the initiative: the COSSAN Association - Senegalese Community of Santa Croce sull'Arno and the DISSO Association - Senegalese Diaspora for Development and Solidarity, the Arturo Association, the Carnaval d'Autore Association, the Santa Croce sull'Arno Polyvalent Institute, The Recovery Plan, Florence.The municipality of Santa Croce sull'Arno is a member of the Terre di Pisa network.
The project that brought Binta Diaw to work in Santa Croce sull'Arno aims to achieve processes of dialogue and coexistence between different cultures by involving, in a participatory process, the large Senegalese community resident in the Tuscan municipality. The population of Santa Croce sull'Arno, a small town known the world over for its leatherworking, is around 14,600, 23% of whom are migrants from over 50 countries, attracted over the years by an extremely dynamic economic fabric, and this extremely varied and articulate composition makes for an interesting and complex community. The Senegalese community is very large and, as with all ethnic groups, its composition includes many second-generation girls and boys, young people born in Santa Croce sull'Arno.
Until March 3, the rooms of Villa Pacchiani will host a series of significant works by Binta Diaw (Milan, 1995), an Italian-Senegalese artist and one of the most powerful voices of the young generation of Afro-descendant artists. In addition to installations, some of them very large-scale, photographs, videos and sculptures, a work resulting from a dialogue between the artist and the territory will also be presented, with a view to mutual understanding.
Binta Diaw, who works in a variety of expressive languages, focuses her work on a philosophical investigation of the social phenomena that characterize our contemporaneity, in particular migration, and on questions of identity, belonging and gender, using the body and space. The artist constantly invites reflection based on being a black woman in a Europeanized world traversed by multiple histories and characterized by geographies that can be constantly revised and reinterpreted from a consciously critical perspective.
