Winner of the Lazio Contemporaneo 2020 call, Anti – Social Car is an installation by Viola Pantano, which will remain 10 years in the Villa Comunale of Frosinone from January 2022.
The work opens a dialogue with the inhabitants of the area on the economic and social changes taking place. In the last fifty years, the history of Southern Lazio is closely linked to the industrial policies of the post-war period and to the successive stages that mark the transformation of the productive apparatus in Italy. In particular, the region welcomed initiatives related to the then growing automotive industry. The transition from a peasant economy to an industry-driven economy has generated a radical transformation of the economic, social and cultural fabric of the area, which is reflected in its current identity.
Anti – Social Car proposes a reinterpretation of the historic FIAT Panda: among the cars par excellence, symbol of the mass market, the Panda represents the complex relationship between labor policies, production displacement and employment needs. The beginning of its production was for FIAT a moment of union crisis, linked to the hypothetical involvement of the factories of Cassino and Termini Imerese, instead of those of Turin and Desio.
The Coronavirus epidemic has deeply affected humanity in the last two years. This global event has generated an acceleration of the processes of transformation in response to major global issues: climate change, sustainability, welfare, production dynamics, distribution of wealth, social relations. Many reflections have been opened on the relationship between community, territory and productive identities; new ways of controlling and representing relationships have been born.
Anti – Social Car interprets social distancing and the way in which the aesthetics of relationships have changed in the recent past to involve the public in a collection of stories and reflections on distance, discrimination, the social value of difference. The car is characterized by single-seater cabins that become the symbolic place from which to tell their experience.
Artist: Viola Pantano
Curated by: qwatz – contemporary art platform
Main partner Eticae, Ada Art Advisory