These ancient buildings, typical of the Apulian territory, are linked to peasant origins both in their architectural form and in a historicalanthropological sense - Trulli were originally built using rocks obtained from the stone removal of the land to make it more easily cultivable and were used to house farmers and animals. The trullo with its almost domed shape leaps upwards, and often shows signs and symbols belonging to different cultures (Christian, Jewish, Pagan, etc.) that refer to the knowledge of atmospheric regimes, the nature of the climate, and the observation of the stars. The relationship between the earth and the sky emerges, therefore, as spontaneous in the encounter with the territory, both from the artisanal and material point of view and from the more metaphorical, universal, and cosmological one.

 

The artists involved discuss the specificity of the place and invite one to observe the hosting architecture and the surrounding landscape that are able to ignite new meanings and sensations. The interventions exhibited on the artistic path “DOVE LA TERRA INCONTRA IL CIELO” (WHERE THE EARTH MEETS THE SKY), curated by Giulia Bortoluzzi, open a direct dialogue with the specificity of the place, without referring to the nature of the territory of the Trulli didactically, and inviting one to observe it under a different light.

Andrea Francolino’s (Bari, 1979) work Dalla terra al cemento alla terra al cemento (2018) is the visible and remaining impression of ground’s dust, a volatile and ephemeral substance; his gesture is minimal towards the natural phenomenon that he intercepts, showing the inexhaustible polarities inherent: the dust of the earth, the dust of the cement, are at the origin of human constructions, and connect the past to the present as well as nature to technical capacity, the earth to the sky. The atavistic encounter between Zenit and nadir, earth science and celestial science, is embodied by the work of Carlo Guaita (Palermo, 1954), an artist who is also a scholar of geology and astronomy. Opposites in continuousness, images of totality emerging in the encounter between science and mysticism, as in the case of Untitled (Volcanoes I) (2015) triptychs made with pigments on acetate sheets, which appear spontaneously from the spots of color as landscapes, without a defined time and space. The idea of an impregnable image, that continuously evades from the possibility of visually grasping it in its complete unity, is shared by the silent video by Niamh O'Malley (Mayo, Ireland, 1975) Nephin (2014). The artist circumnavigates the homonymous Irish mountain by filming it from the car window in an attempt to immortalize it as a whole. Other than just the small black dot that obscures the glass throughout the film, the road traveled meets curves, movements, or elements of the landscape that prevent one from seeing the peak entirely. Pushing the Earth's crust upwards, mountains and volcanoes seem to want to reach the celestial mantle. A utopia is accomplished, for instance, in Fabio Roncato’s (Rimini, 1982) video, The star's engine (2019), where the volcanic beach of Maratea bathed by the waves of the sea turns into a circular line, pulsates like a star in cosmic darkness or as a solar eclipse in the universe. The fading of nature into itself also occurs in the video by Elise Eeraerts (Mechelen, Belgium, 1986), Saint-JeanPort-Joli (2022) which documents the realization of the homonymous sculpture in compressed snow made by the artist in Canada. The architecture, built using nine times the same mold, reminiscent of the geometry of a hexagonal prism, is exposed to the climatic conditions that determine its deformation over time, to finally make it disappear completely bringing the material back to its original state. In the reflective white glacial landscape, the snow is confused with the horizon line, so much so that the earth merges with the sky. Even the five tables Inversioni (2022) by the duo Martinelli Venezia (Carolina Martinelli, and Vittorio Venezia, 1980) bring "heaven to earth" thanks to the due meters and a half of diameter irregular shaped steel mirror-like plane surface. This big circle anchored to the earth is in constant exchange with the surrounding landscape. Once again, local knowledge is linked to the most recent technical discoveries that allow one to look further or closer, to retreat, to push oneself towards the stars, to then return and root that height on the earth. This is reminiscent, for example, of Bea McMahon’s (Dublin, 1972) cotton inflatable tree tinted with vegetable natural coloring agents that are released in the wind in the surroundings of the property; her An olive tree made visible by light from the Dog Star (2022) shows to the stars the colors it absorbed from the soil of our planet, just like the Apulian olive trees, to which it draws its inspiration from. The olive trees have been inhabiting for long years the earth illuminated by the same star, Dog Star, the brightest of all during the summer solstice. The earth as generative power is also the protagonist of Pamela Diamante's work, Aurora (2021), which presents a collage of fragments of Pietra Paesina, a Tuscan limestone formed fifty million years ago in particular geological conditions, with the phrase of Friedrich Nietzsche: "There are still many auroras that must shine". The image of the stone, resulting from the sedimentation of minerals and the passage of time, seems to represent the exact moment that precedes the sunrise, that last phase of dawn that embraces the landscape with that typical glow of rosy or purple color. This visual suggestion combined with the words of the philosopher evokes the idea of a circular temporality, the exact moment of the eternal return that manifests itself through the generating force of nature. Finally, in the unpublished photograph by Luigi Ghirri, Alberobello (1982) appears as an emblem of the entire path: an elderly lady is portrayed walking in the rain, under the umbrella, in front of Trulli. The Apulian territory has inspired the photographer for almost ten years able to capture a deep sense of tranquility, through the sunlight