The Hangar during "The Land of Cockaigne"

I-DEA is one of the two pillar projects of Matera 2019. I-DEA is an experiment in how archives and collections can be understood as living entities through which the stratified complexity of a region’s history and culture can be interpreted.
Five artists and designers were invited to delve into the archives and formulate their own readings in the form of temporary exhibitions drawing on seemingly disparate documents and materials.
In this way, I-DEA will become a collective performance in constant evolution.
The exhibition space has always been open, allowing visitors to attend the stage of preparation of each exhibition as well as the stage of research, elaboration and selection of archive materials by the curators.
The idea of accumulating material is inspired by the imagery of the archive as mutable. For this reason, Open Design School, the second pillar project of Matera 2019, has designed an open, modular and movable installation system that can bring humility, doubt, curiosity and an anti-didactic spirit to the curatorship of collections and archive materials.
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