Safe House at Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo

Artists: Sharon Hayes, Ho Tzu Nyen, Arthur Jafa, Sandra Mujinga, Muna Mussie, Samson Young, Tobias Zielony

Exhibition title: Safe House

Curated by: Irene Calderoni and Bernardo Follini

Venue: Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy

Date: November 5, 2021 – January 31, 2022

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo

Group exhibition Safe House raises the curtain on the second season of Verso, a Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo programme realised in collaboration with Regione Piemonte and the National Department for Youth Policies. In English, the term “safe house” refers to a secret hideaway, a refuge or a den for people whose lives are under threat, to use legally or illegally, stay safe and temporarily drop out of circulation. Secure, private architectures, safe houses guarantee a condition of invisibility for individuals and small groups, making it possible to establish a relationship of complicity to ensure their own safety.

Safe House is a reflection on secrecy and invisibility, understood as forms of government and a way of autonomously organizing human lives.

Today, secrecy is a contested space, beset by policies, strategies and disciplines ranging from the choice of anonymity to data collection and privacy management processes, from the relationship between security and secrecy to intelligence activities and to the organization of secret societies, past and present.

In this exhibition, noisy and dominant voices are silenced to leave room for the buzz and underground sounds. National identities are interpreted as porous geopolitical horizons, constructed through narratives and counter-narratives managed by algorithms, but also as spaces for social conflict, onto which the shadows of violence and oppression continue to be projected. Communities and youth subcultures are adopting techniques borrowed from warfare, masking up as a tool of resistance. Invisibility, in its physical and digital forms, becomes a survival technique, a favoured place to hang out together, rewrite one’s own history, and act without being seen. Safe House is a clandestine environment inhabited by different collective groups that come together to develop new ways of sharing and political reasoning – bodies in training, awaiting their moment to hatch plans in the light of day.

Muna Mussie, Oblio, 2021, installation view, “Safe House”. Courtesy the artist and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin. Photo credit: Sebastiano Pellion di Persano

Tobias Zielony, Maskirovka, 2016-2017, installation view, “Safe House”. Courtesy the artist and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin. Photo credit: Sebastiano Pellion di Persano

Sandra Mujinga, Touch-Face 1 – 3, 2018, installation view, “Safe House”. Courtesy the artist and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin. Photo credit: Sebastiano Pellion di Persano

Ho Tzu Nyen, The Critical Dictionary of Southeast Asia, 2017-ongoing, installation view, “Safe House”. Courtesy the artist and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin. Photo credit: Sebastiano Pellion di Persano

Arthur Jafa, Black Flag 1, 2017, installation view, “Safe House”. Courtesy the artist and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin. Photo credit: Sebastiano Pellion di Persano

Sharon Hayes, In My Little Corner of the World, Anyone Would Love You, 2016, installation view, “Safe House”. Courtesy the artist and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin. Photo credit: Sebastiano Pellion di Persano

Installation view of the exhibition “Safe House”. Courtesy Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin. Photo credit: Sebastiano Pellion di Persano

Samson Young, Muted Situation #5: Muted Chorus, 2016, installation view, “Safe House”. Courtesy the artist and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin. Photo credit: Sebastiano Pellion di Persano