project - celscvil

CELSCVIL

THE PROJECT

Celscvil aims at creating an art park inspired by the Etruscans.

The name of the initiative means gift to the goddess Cel (the Etruscan goddess of earth) and aims to manifest the 16 divinities of the Etruscan pantheon through sculptures and land art installations. The selected 16 gods and goddesses are listed in the liver of Piacenza, the bronze model of sheep's liver, used by haruspic priests for divination (Etruscan discipline).

Cel (the goddess of the earth), Tin (the Etruscan Zeus), Cautha (the daughter of the sun), Fulfuns (the god of wine) and the remaining 12 deities will be reinterpreted by international artists.

The works will be positioned among the olive trees of the Campo dei Miglioli, a hectare of olive grove located in the upper Tuscan Maremma, a few hundred meters from the Etruscan necropolis of Casenovole found in 2007 on the Boschetto hill, dating back to the fourth century BC.

Transcription of the bronze model of the liver of Piacenza

THE THREE PHASES

APRIL 2019

JUNE 2023

OCTOBER 2023 - 2030

The second phase of the project began in the spring of 2023 with the organization and development of the first artistic residence. The Catalan artist Martiga was invited to represent the goddess Cautha with recycled materials found on-site. The "Etruscan discipline" was used to match Martiga with a segment / deity of the park: the week before Martiga's arrival in Tuscany, three lightning strikes took place in the SOUTH/EAST segment, dedicated to Cautha.

The third phase of the project sees the carrying out of 15 artistic residencies and the involvement of the local inhabitants to design the garden and select the plants to be added to the olive trees, in harmony with the sculptures that will be created.

This phase also envisages the expansion of the project to project partners in Italy and abroad to create a broader "Call for Artists" and to promote the artists in residence.

The first phase of the project, (2019-2022) saw the planting of 63 olive trees plus a sixty-fourth found in the center of the area. This formed the spatial frame intended to host the artworks.

The olive trees were positioned following the NORTH/SOUTH/EST/WEST organization to recreate the 16 segments of the Etruscan Pantheon and recall the trigrams of Feng Shui, the ancient Taoist geomantic art of China.

This microcosm unites two cultures (Etruscan and Chinese) that are distant but sensitive to the theme of harmony. The positioning of the olive trees has created a sort of secular temple, an "other" space, in which something different to the existing order of things can emerge. The whole project, from conception to completion, is a sort of collective secular ritual, a way to recover and reinterpret elements of a distant past to live the present with intensity and awareness.

Celscvil from Templum to Feng Shui and vice versa.pdf