FIELD DIARY
Art, Territories, and Sensitive Geographies
Iside Calcagnile, Caterina Gobbi, and Irene Cassarini
24–25 October 2025
Ex Cartiera di Marzabotto (BO), Italy
Field Diary is an exhibition project that brings together the works of Iside Calcagnile, Caterina Gobbi, and Irene Cassarini. Presented by Parsec as part of Franco, a festival for cultural regeneration, the exhibition showcases the research of three artists who, from different perspectives, explore the intersection between art and ecology. Set in the context of the Bolognese Apennines, the project becomes a reflection on landscape and its transformations. Within the spaces of the Ex Cartiera di Lama di Reno, the exhibition takes on an even more specific meaning, entering into direct dialogue with the principles of regeneration and circularity at the heart of Franco—where artistic and ecological practices intertwine to generate new, shared imaginaries.
The title borrows from a technical term in cartography: a field diary is a notebook used in geography and environmental disciplines to record observations made directly in the field. It is a hybrid tool—part scientific instrument, part subjective narrative—through which the territory is approached as a space of observation, listening, and traversal. In this sense, the works by the three artists, through different media, offer an approach to the landscape as a site of experimentation—a tool through which reality becomes sign, line, and trace in a process of constant transformation. The exhibition thus seeks to evoke the crossing of the mountain and its frameworks of meaning as elements of both memory and transformation. A diary, by its nature, implies a form of process and subjectivity that is never a closed synthesis. As in a geographic survey, each element depends on the point of view, the direct contact with the land and its structural components, the relationships formed with the context and its inhabitants. From this perspective emerges an ecological approach to knowledge as embodied and situated experience.
The curatorial choice focused on artists who work with space, in contact with mountain environments, drawing inspiration from them for their works. In the case of Calcagnile, this includes using materials specific to these ecosystems, within an ecological framework of reuse. In apicebianco, la voce, dunque, in cerca della dita and in articolazione n.2, the artist explores the branching and growth patterns of trees; while in Rapporti di forze, she reflects on the strategies developed by natural ecosystems to respond to anthropogenic pressures, seen as forces of change. Gobbi’s entire practice finds in the mountain a privileged site—evoked through materials like granite, climbing ropes, and carabiners—where the human-nature relationship is reimagined. convergenza armonica invites us to move beyond an anthropocentric worldview and to imagine a cultural model where stones, seas, mountains, rivers, plants, and animals can also be recognised as political actors. Her work emphasizes the complex layering of relationships, signs, and meanings—often hidden or imperceptible—that arise from every place. Cassarini approaches the landscape through an abstract, philosophical lens, imagining worlds not yet known to humankind—possible futures. Dröm combines music, 3D visuals, lights, and scenographic elements like flowers, vegetation, earth, and stones to explore the liminal space between the real and the virtual, inspired by the interconnections between us and surrounding ecosystems. The artist explores speculative ecology through visual and sonic means, building dreamlike narratives that blend natural and artificial elements to propose a post-anthropocentric imaginative space.
The works on display are in direct dialogue with the mission behind the Nuova Cartiera di Lama di Reno project: a site of urban and landscape regeneration that aims to transform a disused industrial area—the former Burgo paper mill—through symbolic and concrete acts of care, restoring meaning and space to the local community. What was once an industrial production site now becomes a living, open space, where historical memory is woven into new uses and meanings within a shared, sustainable dimension.
Field Diary is therefore fully in tune with the spirit of the site: an alliance between art and ecology that reflects on contemporary landscape transformations, on the value of listening, and the urgency of imagining new relationships between humans and the environment that hosts them.
Free admission
ARTISTS’ BIOS
Iside Calcagnile trained at the Fine Arts Academies of Bologna and Venice, developing an ecosophical practice grounded in the interplay of heterogeneous languages. Her research transcends the human/nature dualism, proposing a systemic approach to the complexity of the real. In 2020, she won an urban regeneration grant from the Municipality of Sasso Marconi, which awarded her an art space at the recently restored Villa Davia, in the 18th-century village of Colle Ameno. Here she founded Spazio Relativo: a research project centered on the contamination of artistic practices and the creative processes of involved artists.
Caterina Gobbi lives and works in the Italian Alps. She is a visual artist, performer, and DJ whose research focuses on the relationship—mediated by sound—between humans and their environments. Combining her interests in ecology, feminism, and electronic music production, she creates immersive soundscapes involving participatory acts of listening. She holds an MFA from the Royal College of Art, London (2018). She has exhibited in Italy and abroad in venues such as Castello Gamba (Châtillon), Chalton Gallery (London), Outpost Gallery (Norwich), Kunstraum Bethanien (Berlin), Palazzo Grassi (Venice), Galleria Karen Huber (Mexico City), Lily Robert (Paris), and KINDL (Berlin).
Irene Cassarini is a music producer, DJ, visual artist, and independent researcher. Born in Bologna, they live and work between Italy and the Netherlands. Throughout their career, they have created audiovisual works that engage with personal, political, and social themes through creative uses of digital tools. Inspired by internet culture, queer theory, and digital art, Cassarini—also known by the alias Guenter Raler—has performed at numerous prestigious festivals. In 2021, they were selected as one of 12 participants in the European Female DJ Summit in Copenhagen.