For the first time, over twenty artists from little constellation are brought together in a single, unprecedented exhibition, presenting at Fabbrica del Vapore in Milan from March 9 to April 8, 2010, the most interesting projects reflecting a vision of contemporary art in the micro geo-cultural areas and small States of Europe. Artists born in or operating within those small geographic realities, with a population under one million inhabitants, where the idea of borders and identity become defining and essential themes, although interpreted through different languages each time.

Born as an international network for contemporary art from an idea by two artists from San Marino, Rita Canarezza & Pier Paolo Coro, little constellation has evolved from a research project into an international exchange platform for the dissemination of information, also thanks to this exhibition, aimed at fostering the creation of co-productions and collaborations for new projects.

Supported from the very beginning, back in 2004, by Fondazione San Marino and Ufficio Attività Sociali e Culturali, later joined by Ente Cassa di Faetano, and under the patronage of Assessorato alla Cultura, Assessorato allo Sport e Tempo Libero, and Assessorato al Turismo, Marketing Territoriale e Identità of the Comune di Milano; over the years the project has succeeded in creating a genuine network of relationships with numerous institutions, associations, and museums, with the small States of Europe—Andorra, Cipro, Islanda, Liechtenstein, Lussemburgo, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, San Marino—and with some micro geo-cultural realities in the European area, including Canton Ticino (CH), Ceuta (ES), Gibraltar (UK), Kaliningrad (RUS).

Today the project and the exhibition are supported by the Republic of San Marino under the patronage and contributions of the Eccellentissima Reggenza and the Segreteria di Stato per gli Affari Esteri, Telecomunicazioni e Trasporti, the Segreteria di Stato per la Pubblica Istruzione e Cultura, Università e Politiche Giovanili, and the Segreteria di Stato per il Turismo e lo Sport of the Republic of San Marino.

Living and working in a “micro-state” inevitably forces a confrontation on one hand with the macro socio-political reality that surrounds it, namely Europe, and on the other hand with a sense of identity and the permeable idea of borders, which often in the works of the artists in the exhibition becomes an idea of interior and emotional geography, where knowledge of the world becomes knowledge of oneself. Even though the title suggests it, in reality there is no strictly thematic directive that broadly unites each of the artistic proposals. It is rather a “constellation” of ideas that embraces multiple directions, each interpretable in a free and autonomous way. Paradoxically, what perhaps unites and brings these artists closer is the perception and sense of distance of living in territories with high symbolic definition, as a striking result, aimed at reading these places (explicit or not, judges or accomplices) in the continuous process of systematic “self-reorganization” that characterizes complex Western societies.

Thus, in different but equally incisive ways, there are the videos by Danil Akimov & Sound Art Lab, an artistic group, and Axsinja Uranova from Kaliningrad, who present video and sound installations dedicated to the intimate and personal documentation of the particular condition of daily life in this Russian enclave.

Dedicated to the confrontation and overcoming of limits and borders, both political and physical, is the project by Albani & Mussoni, artists from San Marino, also supported by the Associazione Sclerosi Multipla Italiana e Sammarinese. Artist and photographer from Liechtenstein, Barbara Bühler presents a video projection related to themes of intimate and personal storytelling developed in her country of origin, while Barbara Geyer, also from Liechtenstein, presents a site-specific metal environmental installation for the exhibition space.

Oppy De Bernardo, a Swiss artist, in the environmental installation and in the video, works on the relationship between visual arts and popular culture, while the work of the artistic group Paradise Consumer Group is dedicated to the cultural and commercial stereotypes of their country, Andorra.

Artist Sandrine Flury, who resides, works and lives in Monaco, whose research constantly balances between visual arts and design, presents a small installation related to the world of design. The birth of the first Museum of Contemporary Art on their small island of Malta is the subject of the documentary video by Mark Mangion & Pierre Portelli, while the documentary work of Quino & Juanjo Oliva focuses on the difficult coexistence between Ceuta and neighboring Morocco.

Trixi Weis, an artist from Luxembourg, dedicates her research to themes of identity and personal narrative. Two different videos will be on display. Also a video installation by Nina Danino, an artist originally from Gibraltar and professor at Fine Art at Goldsmith’s College in London. The artist from Cyprus Christodoulos Panayiotou presents a video on the theme of identity, and on the same theme work Matteo Terzaghi & Marco Zurcher, important Swiss artists and winners of the Premio Manor, who after the exhibition at the cantonale of Lugano present a new installation. Images and sounds, in the Sala delle Colonne of the Fabbrica del Vapore, will overlap and blend, thus redefining the (cultural and linguistic) borders of the individual works and creating new territories of belonging, for a narrative that is both individual and collective.

Careof hosted during the evening of the opening performances by Icelandic artists Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson, Irena Lagator, Ingibjorg Magnadottir and the installation by Martin Walch, interventions of very different nature but united by the will to establish a direct, immediate, and in some aspects surprising relationship with the audience.

In the spaces of DOCVA it is possible to view the previously unreleased documentary videos made by the artists Rita Canarezza & Pier Paolo Coro during their travels in the 13 micro-states. Also presented is the project Video Sensitive Postcards / Video Cartoline Sensibili (concept by Agnes Roux), capable of telling, in 18 short videos, the identity—sometimes minimal, stereotyped and not—characteristic of these particular realities.