AN EXHIBITION PROJECT CURATED BY GRADUATE STUDENTS AT THE CENTER FOR CURATORIAL STUDIES, BARD COLLEGE

Favaretto’s work consists of a suitcase, contents unknown, left alone in the gallery space, that invokes a scene of abandoned personal belongings, traveling, trafficking, and the presumed dangers associated with unattended baggage in public spaces. The suitcase project was initiated in 2005 when Favaretto learned about a state-run company that organizes auctions for unclaimed “lost and found” items from the Italian railway system. She was intrigued when she realized that homeless people were buying suitcases for a few euros without any knowledge of their contents—personal belongings either sadly lost or easily forgotten by their original owners. The project began when Favaretto attended one of these auctions and purchased a suitcase.

In her installations, performances, films, and photographic work, Favaretto creates situations and atmospheres that are in continuous metamorphosis, and that gain power in relation to the viewers’ memories and experiences. Viewers are invited to participate in the process of creating meaning for, and stories about, the objects. Favaretto’s improvisatory work invokes a magic realism, in which the unconscious and the dreamlike proliferate in positive and negative encounters with the real.Favaretto’s suitcase piece migrates from Cuchifritos to the Storefront for Art and Architecture in March, where it will be recontextualized with the works of the other artists participating in Lost and Found City: Caitlin Berrigan & Michael McBean, Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP), Jonah Freeman, Mark Koven, LURE, Mads Lynnerup, Jill Magid, Costa Vece, and Stephen Vitiello. The exhibition opens at the Storefront for Art and Architecture on Saturday, March 3, and is on view through Saturday, March 24. There will be also be a performance at Orchard in early March (date to be announced).