Da bambino camminavo mettendo i piedi solo sulle mattonelle nere, ora che sono
grande quando cammino non so più su quale colore di mattonelle mettere i piedi is the title that artist Francesco Arena gave to the workshop he conceived and led. Literally, it means When I was a child I used to walk on black tiles only, now that I grew up I don’t know on which color to walk upon anymore. It involved twenty participants, including entrepreneurs, institutional representatives and young artists. It took place within the third edition of Business Meets Art – an international event dedicated to art and enterprise, which is curated by ETRARTE association, and is a chance of networking between cultural projects and business sector.

For this occasion, Arena divided the working day into 3 “exercises” that investigate the individual-memory relation, by trying to understand the way in which personal experiences and memories get lost in the collective memory flow. In the first “exercise”, participants were asked to confront with the gaze of a public figure they chose. They had to put the image in line with their own gaze. For the second one, a collective space map was realized by uniting the rooms that every participant had chosen according to the importance they had in their lives. As for the third exercise, participants chose the date of a special event in their lives and united all of them to arrange a calendar.

The artist worked side by side with the curator and the trainer and interacted with the diverse group by stimulating the reflection on collaboration, style and working method diversity through the participants’ experience as they realized a participated artwork.