25/02 — 27/02/2025
FINTI TONTI
- ATI
27/02 — 23/03/2025
Extruded Polystyrene Styrofoam
- ATI
27/02 — 23/03/2025
Installation
The work Extruded Polystyrene Styrofoam by -ATI is both a manifesto-project and a scenic device: on one hand, a declaration of intent about architectures filled with tensions and contradictions; on the other, an alpine costume and a carnival mask. It is a site-specific reinterpretation of Oribasia Corviale, the last project created by ATI collective in Rome, which invites us to go beyond the surface of error, decorum, cement, and rhetoric to observe space through the lens of playing dumb. Two weights, two scales, a single material-paradox: extruded polystyrene styrofoam becomes the glue between the myth of an ascent and embodied architecture. ATI explores an expansive research methodology, developing through accumulation and transformation, generating a field of tensions where elements seemingly foreign to the lagoon context turn out to be, in fact, deeply rooted in it.
Oribasia Corviale is the most recent project carried out by ATI collective in Rome, developed between October 2024 and January 2025. The initiative, which integrated workshop sessions and installation works, wished to stimulate a rethinking of urban spaces, transforming industrial materials commonly used for technical operations on existing structures into new architectural scenarios. The materials of choice were extruded polystyrene insulation panels, among the most widely used props in energy conversion. Situated in one of the most significant economic and popular architecture projects in Italy, the Corviale residential complex in Rome, the process involved its residents in the creation of a vertical space, overlapping the panels so as to build one or more peaks on the terraces of the housing unit, normally unused due to the unduly high railings, which impeded the view. The installation finally made the view enjoyable, precisely where architectural errors once seemed insurmountable.
The installation Finti Tonti presents the results of the workshop conducted by ATI collective at Scuola Piccola Zattere in February 2025. The workshop, combining theoretical research and practical experimentation, explored the strategy of playing dumb, which the collective defines as “a device of resistance, a mechanism of adaptation, an illusion chosen with clear determination”. Through exercises and reflections, participants explored the contradictions inherent in the perception of the imminent end of an era or a system, questioning the strategies to confront, transform, or tolerate this condition. The workshop took place during Carnival, providing an opportunity to reflect on what it means to prepare oneself, to dress up and find nourishment when the catastrophe signifies not only an end but the beginning of a journey through the deepest contradictions that govern our lives.
ATI is an artistic collective born in Rome in 2013, composed of an interdisciplinary group of architects, visual artists and philosophers. The collective directs its research in the direction of art as a research method in the urban, considering interaction and relationship as the basis of every artistic process. The group distinguishes itself by constantly changing its name in relation to its members and the psychogeographical territories crossed. For over ten years, it has worked at the intersection of urban participation and performing arts, stimulating the self-representation of marginalized communities, creating bridges between different urban actors, generating conditions for public conversations, and inviting people to engage in unconventional situations. The group has been collaborating for many years with the Department of Architecture of Roma Tre, the Faculty of Space and Design of Linz in Austria, and the ESI University of Fine Arts of Poitiers in France.