The Ice Monolith Platform . The Book

The ice monolith platform . the book

Stefano Cagol interviewing with the three questions:
1. How not to disappear?

2. What is affecting the Earth?

3. How does art influence society?

Ombretta Agrò Andruff, Francesca Bacci, Lucia Barison, Guido Bartorelli, Malgorzata Basinska, Alessandra Benacchio, Stefan Bidner, Camilla Boemio, Iara Boubnova, Giulio Bursi, Giusy Caroppo, Chiara Casarin, Alfredo Cramerotti, Blanca de la Torre, Gianluca d’Incà Levis, Federica Forti, Peggy Gale, Idis Hartmann, Gregor Jansen, Luba Kuzovnikova, Esther Lu, Mihovil Markulin, Daria Mille-Rassokhina, Chiara Parisi, Emanuele Quinz, Maren Richter, Michele Robecchi, Saverio Simi De Burgis, Maddalena Tomasi, Fatoş Üstek, Kamila Wielebska, Eric M. Wilcox, June Yap, Raul Zamudio.

Stefano Cagol is artist participating in the Maldives Pavilion, 55th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia with the project THE ICE MONOLITH.The project develops through a video installation by the Pavilion venue; a 24 hours-performance during the opening days on Riva Cà di Dio from May 29 (then documented also by the Pavilion); and a platform happening in different ways, locations, moments, and with different guests along the all duration of the Biennale.What does it ask us? A monolith of ice of the Alps appears in Venice along the shore in Cà di Dio and melts in the summer sun. A Kubrickian metaphor questioning about the serious process that is affecting the planet. Stefano Cagol himself, based in a village in the Alps and just back from projects in the Arctic region, is witnessing the ongoing vanishing of the so called “eternal ice.” Ice melts to water. The water of the monolith dissolving to the lagoon joins then billions and billions of gallons of water that in the next decades risk to overwhelm the most sensitive areas of the globe. The Maldives is one of the first, but also Venice. Alps and Maldives, ice and sun, so far but so close, connected by the same fate.
THE ICE MONOLITH is a few hours action during the opening. An act of aesthetic and emotional impact addressed to a wide audience, to attract attention and trigger reflection. A metaphor, a disappearance. Then this action will continue to be revealed to the public also through a video documentation on view by the Pavilion and stretching the process of disappearing for the six months of the Biennale. Furthermore in the video installation THE ICE MONOLITH. Fade high mountains emerge from water – or disappear into it. Dilemmas, answers, resources, attempts, strategies, utopias are faced also in a platform that completes the project involving a wide circle of players – since Sanskrit name of Maldives Mālā-dvīpa literally means garland of islands. Curators, writers, researchers from all continents and from Maldives are invited to interact with the artist trying to answer to THE ICE MONOLITH. In various ways from dialogues to concerts, in different moments along all six months of Biennale, and in several places – by the Maldives Pavilion in Venice, by Stefano Cagol’s studio at VIR Viafarini-in-residence in Milan, on the web, on the top of alpine glaciers.