POST-OFFICE: A GROUND ACTION ANTHOLOGY

Improvisation and observing the context are the two pivots of the practice of a collective that has carried out over 60 interventions in a decade of activity. The exhibition Post Office A Ground Action Anthology is a manifestation of the desire to recount this time spent modifying elements and places.

The story that emerges is still raw, not rigidified by classification or chronology: all the projects are presented as linked to one another in an exhibition that explores how places can be transformed through actions initiated in the field, actions that could be interpreted, adapted and carried forward by others, guided by a shared desire for change. Above all, it aims to raise awareness of the everyday gestures we often overlook, the small and constant practices that shape our environments. The images documenting the various interventions offer a radical and critical reflection on an alternative idea of design, based on gestures and forms of collaborative action to question architecture through collective and performative formats. Ground Action combines two key ideas: the act of starting from the ground, from the bottom up, being rooted in what already exists; and “action”, as a reference to art as an event, to being active among things, to direct political action, to working within and across territories.

The collective perspective is based on simple but powerful principles: reducing resource consumption, working with what is available, promoting shared awareness and encouraging collective participation. The collective's perspective is based on simple but powerful principles: reducing resource consumption, working with what is available, promoting shared awareness and encouraging collective participation. This attitude often leads to chance encounters with places, objects, participants and ideas for actions. The architectures of Ground Action create spaces for sharing, places created by the reordering of nature that remain natural and non-invasive gestures in open space. At the centre is the concept of “performing landscape”, which frames every act of maintenance, care and intervention, involving organic or inorganic matter, as akin to artistic, choreographic or theatrical performance. This approach challenges a persistent gap in architectural discourse, a tendency to overlook long-term processes of use, management and transformation. Post-office celebrates a form of intelligence that is too often underestimated: one that understands time, embraces constraints and cultivates through maintenance.

Ground Action

Ground Action (Venice and Palermo) creates site-specific projects and actions in the fields of art, landscape and architecture. It is inspired by collective and participatory practices of spatial modification. It promotes maintenance as a form of project, recovery and reuse as actions of transformation. Its goal is the direct and concrete execution of installations, performative interventions and virtuous behaviour. Ground Action is Matteo D'Ambros, Sergio Sanna, Stefano Tornieri, Roberto Zancan, Carlalberto Amadori (until 2019) and Francesco Cucchiara (until 2018).