Sweet Home

Data (Decrescente)

Aprile 2024
A short story by Marco Panizza

Gino poses in front of Sweet Home - Photo by Marco Panizza

Gino observes

The water has receded and Sweet Home has resumed its prone position. As I approach, I hear someone calling me. It is Gino, an eighty-six-year-old pensioner who often wanders around the floodplain.
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Marzo 2024
Water Baptism

It finally floats. We have reached the moment when Sweet Home is truly submerged in water for the first time. It is a significant event in the life cycle of the work.
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Dicembre 2023
Flooding of the floodplain

The Po came out of its riverbed and invaded the park. The floodplain areas flooded as the flood wave passed, but the boat is in shallow water.
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Ottobre 2022
Prohibition of access to the work of art

Bruno Melli looks puzzled at the prohibition sign

Placing a ban on the enjoyment of a work of art is a complex decision and must be approached carefully, respecting the fundamental principles of artistic freedom and freedom of expression.
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Ottobre 2022
Frequently Asked Questions

A series of insights into the nature of the project provide food for thought and keys to interpretation. Compiled by the author on the basis of the most frequently asked questions.
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Settembre 2022
An exhibition inside the artwork

On the exhibition flyer for Trasporto eccezionale there is a QR code that allows you to download the release form to visit Sweet Home without encountering any refusals.

Trasporto eccezionale
It is the title of a collective exhibition inside Sweet Home, organized by the Swiss artist-curator Al Fadhil in collaboration with Umberto Cavenago. A collective exhibition for just one day: Sunday, September 18, 2022, featuring 55 invited artists engaging in this unclassifiable space.
Sweet Home is a place with walls and flooring entirely made of steel, where the artworks have been positioned using magnets within the internal space of the artwork.
"Trasporto eccezionale" was the exhibition that marked the inauguration of Sweet Home. An experiment with an allusive character that led participants and the audience to confront the symbolic themes of our contemporaneity.

THE EXHIBITION IN PICTURES
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Settembre 2022
The Konzepthaus Laboratorium and Umberto Cavenago

Umberto Cavenago, Marc Biesenkamp, Ueli Biesenkamp, Alessandro Rolandi and Roberto De Luca
Photo © Ermanno Cristini

Sweet Home is not unique and unrepeatable
The Konzepthaus Laboratorium, in collaboration with Umberto Cavenago, is exploring participation in the project competition for the 14th Swiss Sculpture Exhibition in 2024.
The collective is composed of Umberto Cavenago, Marc Biesenkamp, Ueli Biesenkamp, Alessandro Rolandi, and Roberto De Luca.
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Agosto 2022
Projects and energies

Marco Panizza, Umberto Cavenago and Claudio Cavalli

It has arrived at its destination to become a starting point
Sweet Home serves as a starting point for the current discourse. Public art doesn't necessarily have to be immobile. Sweet Home is a boat that can sail, using the metaphorical freedom of water to engage with various cultural contexts over time, without overlooking the theme of sustainability. Sweet Home is a nomad.
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Agosto 2022
Art Video Festival al Konzepthaus Laboratorium di Thun

Roberto De Luca, Ueli Biesenkamp, Umberto Cavenago and Marc Biesenkamp

Special Guest
On August 12, at the International Art Video Festival at Konzepthaus Laboratorium in Thun, the Sweet Home project was presented. Curator Alessandro Rolandi chose nomadism as the guiding theme, through which artists express themselves using moving images.
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Agosto 2022
Biblical inspirations

The shape of Sweet Home evokes the biblical tale of the universal flood. Noah's ark is described in the Torah as a large floating house.

Noah knows that it's now too late to argue with his neighbors, so he immediately gets to work
The story of Noah's ark is one of those biblical tales that is, in fact, quite dreadful but fascinating for various reasons. While children are captivated by the colorful array of animals and the romantic notion of a boat floating above waters covering the entire earth, adults might find it a bit amusing to consider this wrathful God who threatens to (and then actually does) wipe out all of humanity, saving only a six-hundred-year-old man, his family, and the animals.
The biblical narrative puts us in a position to imagine a potential disruption of the Earth's ecosystem.
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Agosto 2022
The support of Videoforart

Lorenzo Baldi during the editing

Even a narrative needs assembly
A continuous sense of wonder and a passionate gaze have led to the capture of thousands of photos and hours of video footage. Site visits, project moments, construction, transportation, and final placement have been extensively documented. During the construction of Sweet Home, Videoforart collaborated on professional shoots and interviews with the working team. The produced materials are abundant, of varying quality, requiring careful selection and organization.
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Luglio 2022
Bureaucracy, recognizability, and imaginative freedom

The certificate of registration in the list of companies authorized to build boats suitable for inland navigation by Nettuno Motobarche

In search of a partition comprising things of the same nature
The lack of a universal criterion for recognizing artwork creates uncertainty. Naturally, by following the logical process that led to the creation of Sweet Home, one can identify elements that make its belonging to this set plausible. However, this is not convincing for those solely acquainted with regulations and category definitions.
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Luglio 2022
The final position

Photo © Paxxion, Suzzara

The placement of the artwork amidst the great drought
In the scorching month of July, the artwork is positioned on-site, awaiting attachment to the reinforced concrete pedestals specifically constructed in anticipation of the Po River floods. In the artist's design, it is crucial for the artwork to be anchored to the mainland; the artist has collaborated with specialized technicians appointed by the Municipality of Suzzara to ensure the correct procedures for doing so.
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Luglio 2022
The transport

The transport has arrived at 10:30 pm on July 21, 2022

Floating on wheels
The transportation to reach the destination, although the final phase in a series, is also the most delicate one. The tension that accompanied the artist in meticulously applying every stroke of color on the canvas diminishes. One relies on hope, trusting that everything will go in the right direction.
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Luglio 2022
Plinths

The pedestals will be covered with soil, camouflaging their presence

The real anchors are the ones on the mainland
The two pedestals designed by the technical office of the Municipality of Suzzara will ensure that Sweet Home does not drift. They have been constructed flush with the ground to avoid visually invading the landscape. Their discreet presence in the area will allow Sweet Home to float safely during river floods.
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Luglio 2022
First passengers

Looking Beyond
The artwork is complete, and among the first to board, Anna Radaelli and Alex Bombardieri, with little Petra, auspicate the future of the artwork with their presence.
The emptiness contained within Sweet Home is a space that fluctuates between the potential for representation. Those who board will have a new perspective not only on the framed landscape but on life and becoming.
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Giugno 2022
The oxidation starts

COR-TEN
Sweet Home is constructed with COR-TEN steel, a material patented by the United States Steel Corporation in 1933, which introduced it as low-alloy steel with 0.2-0.5% copper, 0.5-1.5% chromium, and 0.1-0.2% phosphorus.
Over the years, the composition has undergone some modifications, such as the introduction of 0.4% nickel, the reduction of phosphorus to 0.04%, as well as the addition of small amounts of other elements capable of improving its mechanical strength.
The name COR-TEN is derived from the main characteristics of COR-TEN steel:
high corrosion resistance (CORrosion resistance)
high tensile strength (TENsile strength)
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Giugno 2022
The sand

Sandblasting
It is the most effective method for preparing metal surfaces, such as steel, before painting or applying a protective layer against corrosion. The sandblasting of Sweet Home serves the passivation of COR-TEN steel. The removal of surface impurities and the oily layer of the sheets with a high-pressure sand jet enables a faster and more uniform oxidation of the components.
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Maggio 2022
A home in a warehouse

Le parti sono state assemblate come in un puzzle

L'assemblaggio è terminato (27 maggio 2022)
Sweet Home stops in a warehouse of Nettuno Motobarche shipyard
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May 2022
Appearances

Like paint drops
At the shipyard, work is underway to assemble the elements to create the deck structure. "Welding nails" are created at predefined points. The elements of a hull structure must be connected to ensure structural continuity, but above all, to ensure the transmission of forces and tensions due to loads from one element to another.
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Maggio 2022
The team

Detail of a photo by Andrea Redegalli

Neptune and his men
A collaborative atmosphere accompanied the construction process; all the shipyard personnel became passionate about the project. It was carried forward, with everyone constantly seeking optimal solutions for a successful construction.
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Maggio 2022
The means of restraint

Scheme

The floodplain will flood
The floor plan and the anchoring scheme envisioned for Sweet Home. Assuming that the current has a direction parallel to that corresponding to the development of the floodplain embankment, the so-called stern chain will almost always be subject to tension, while the bow chain will have the function of limiting any drift and yaw of the vessel.
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Aprile 2022
The welding

The watertight hull
A watertight hull is designed to contain water on the outside of the boat, allowing the inside of the hull to remain dry. This is essential for the boat's buoyancy and stability. A tin-plated hull helps prevent water from entering and saturating the hull, thus reducing the risk of sinking.
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Aprile 2022
The position

The stake
A site visit with Engineer Dario Pecchini from the Technical Office of the Municipality of Suzzara to precisely define the placement of Sweet Home. The terrain is flat, spacious, and dry, but during flood events, when the river needs to reclaim its space and freedom, it can be completely covered with water. With Dario Pecchini and Engineer Giuseppe Saviolo, who oversaw the engineering phases of the artwork, the first solutions for the construction of suitable restraint devices are hypothesized: an underground reinforced concrete pedestal at the site, like an anchor for mooring a ship.
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Aprile 2022
The hull

Andrea Redegalli, Andrea Rossi and Giorgio Spagna

Foundations
Subjected to hydrostatic pressure, which depends solely on Archimedes' principle, the hull keeps the entire vessel afloat. It is the part of Sweet Home that required the most attention during the design. The hull is like the foundations of a house, and as everyone knows: to build, you always start from the bottom. In a shipyard, Sweet Home is a small artifact; the material chosen for its construction is not among the conventional ones used to build real ships, and the shape is very simple and unusual in the maritime landscape: builders question its function.
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Aprile 2022
The semi-finished components are ready

Precious sheets
The 5mm and 4mm sheets, cut, drilled, and folded according to the design, have arrived at the shipyard. All elements are coded and listed on an online database to be checked at the construction site before starting the assembly. It is the last order the supplier could fulfill before the supply block due to the war conflict. The material had already undergone a 90% increase, and the constant demand with a shrinking supply due to war-related reasons continues to drive prices higher. That's the free market.
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Marzo 2022
Men of the Po

L'ingegnoso pollaio regala agli animali l'esperienza del galleggiamento

Marco Panizza with Cacio (Claudio Cavalli) meet the men of the Po
AL PULÈR (The Chicken Coop)
Tùrel takes us to see his concrete barge placed on a meadow of grass running towards the main embankment, next to his little house. Then he tells us that he recovered it, before 2000, at Bocca d'Enza by tying it to a boat 'in the right place'. When he arrived in the area, when the level of the Po covered the path, he and some friends dragged it to the place where they could put it. How? Says Turèl: "Cun an šög ad sùghi, an toc alla volta, a la ligaum a tac a li pianti e la tiraum avanti" (With a game of big ropes, one stretch at a time, we tied it to the trunks of the trees and dragged it forward).
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Marzo 2022
Men of the Po

Marco Panizza with Cacio (Claudio Cavalli) meet the men of the Po
The wreck
I get off the main embankment and park at the back of the Argento vivo restaurant.
We are close to the area where Sweet Home will be located, where the San Colombano Park begins.
Today we begin to collect images, testimonies, stories, and chatter from regular and occasional visitors to the place about its history...
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Marzo 2022
An objective circumstance

This objective and unexpected circumstance completely revolutionised the course of execution and the artist, on his own, found himself having to make ends meet in order to respect the initial idea by following through on the project without alterations or reductions of any kind.

Russia-Ukraine Conflict
by Assolombarda

The war in Ukraine has exacerbated the critical situation in supply chains caused by the pandemic, with sharp increases in the prices of some raw materials and growing delays and price increases in freight logistics hampering normal business operations.
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Marzo 2022
Shipyard research

Giorgio Spagna, the builder

To build Sweet Home, a shipyard is indispensable. Sweet home is indeed a sculpture, but it is a special sculpture that must have within it a number of attributes that are indispensable and unavoidable for the author and all those who will use it.
The world of shipbuilding is a stranger, so the search on the net begins.
Pages of sites of shipyards scroll by: from those that have made the history of navigation, to those famous for pleasure boats, shipyards for the construction of fast patrol boats, patrol boats, ferry boats, passenger ships, tugs... a universe that is also geographically very distant. This in itself is not an insuperable problem: a period of travel to follow the construction of the sculpture can be taken into account.
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Febbraio 2022
The search for materials and machines

CBC 2 500 tonne bender, 16m long

Supply of semi-finished products
The supply of materials in times of pandemic is difficult.
COR-TEN steel is only marketed by a few large companies.
There are even fewer large steel suppliers who are also able to produce the semi-finished products. Research is complex but stimulating, the industrial realities of northern Italy are surprising and inspiring.
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Gennaio 2022
The local press

The page in the Gazzetta di Mantova

Press
Local press devotes space to the news of Sweet Home's realisation
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Dicembre 2021
The executives

Giuseppe and Francesca Saviolo of Sigma Ingegneria did the engineering for Sweet Home

Rationality and passion
The friendship with engineer Giuseppe Saviolo was a strong point in the formalisation of Sweet Home's final project.
Cavenago's sketches, drawings and initial modelling dialogue with the engineer's vision. As with a marble sculpture, the idea takes shape in stages. The continuous confrontation with rationality and the passionate contribution of Giuseppe Saviolo ensures that the structural component harmonises with the overall design, which becomes increasingly simplified and takes on optimal proportions until arriving at the most essential lines.
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Novembre 2021
The water level is low

Danger. Do not go aft.

The most diverse floating devices, scattered along the embankment, await the waters of the Po. The perception of beauty is subjective, and what may seem ugly to one person might be appreciated by another.
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Settembre 2021
The Creative Commons project

Creative Commons licences are contracts through which the copyright holder grants permission to use the work to an indefinite number of parties. The licensor, therefore, does not assign his rights but grants their enjoyment to third parties (licensees) under certain conditions. CC licences are based on the concept of 'some rights reserved', according to which, the owner decides which rights to reserve and which to grant for use.

THE TABLES
The Creative Commons licence
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Settembre 2021
The choice of site

River basins
AIPO Geoportal

A boat in the floodplain
After several inspections, the most suitable spot along the Po embankment was identified to house the work. A sufficiently spacious area that will allow Sweet Home to move naturally during the floating sessions.
The positioning will be agreed upon with the technical office of the Suzzara Municipality and the various authorities.
San Colombano Park, Po River Embankment,
44°59'26.7 "N 10°41'46.2 "E
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Settembre 2021
The genesi

Conscious management of the landscape heritage is urgently needed
The project hypothesis submitted to the PAC2020 public notice needs to be developed and contextualised. From its first formulation to today, with the successful launch of the call for tenders, about a year has passed. These latency and pandemic times had dulled enthusiasm but the prospect of realising the project creates a new impetus and adds strength to the undertaking.
Knowledge of the site is at the basis of the project decision, the hypothesised space is only a potential environment, we proceed with a careful observation of the floodplain between the bank edge and the main embankment with several inspections also on the opposite bank and in the neighbouring municipalities.
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Agosto 2021
The project is financed

Proposal accepted
The participation in the public announcement 'PAC2020 - Plan for Contemporary Art' promoted by the General Directorate Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture was successful. Sweet Home is the winner of PAC 2020. The project won fourth place out of 94 projects submitted and twenty funded in the chosen line of action.
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Dicembre 2020
Design hypotheses

4 December 2020 inspection of the possible site of the planned work

Una scultura o un'architettura, forse una barca?
Il paesaggio fluviale del Po è stato sempre considerato come un territorio di confine, gravato da problemi vecchi e nuovi: l’inquinamento delle acque, il consumo di suolo, le escavazioni nel letto del fiume hanno compromesso parte delle caratteristiche, aumentato il rischio idrogeologico e la frammentazione degli habitat naturali.
Un intervento di qualsiasi natura, in un simile contesto, deve tener conto della situazione di fatto e ha la responsabilità di entrare in dialogo con la realtà contingente.
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Ottobre 2020
The idea is here

Casa, barca, acqua

Paesaggi
Lungo l'argine del Po si incontrano gli ingredienti di un'idea che fluttua tra le acque come se fossero già stati preparati e resi disponibili. Navigli che hanno trasportato persone e cose, case-rifugio palafitticole e case galleggianti. Elementi pronti per essere utilizzati per costruire e dar forma all'idea. Objets trouvées che con il loro carattere di scoperta inaspettata, equivalgono all'ispirazione poetica.
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Settembre 2020
Starting point

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Sweet Home