Stardust 002 · Well-being · 2026
Practising Futures
How can art sustain the ground it stands on?
The process
- Choose
- Create
- Raise
- Impact
The work
How can art sustain the ground it stands on?
Four artists — two based in Berlin, two from the territory — met in the hills of Alessandria for two days of making in public. Under Solis, the Muse of well-being, cocoex curated a group show built around that one question, with each work asking something of the people in the room.
Pulkit Gandhi, an Indian calligraphy artist based in Berlin, showed L'Anima della Terra: calligraphy in ink he made from walnut husks, formed from words participants gave him — each person's words become a figure. At its centre, a vessel the community filled with gifts from the land, a vine planted inside. It stays at Cascina La Zerba as a capsule of the two days.
Laura Marini, a painter from the Tortona hills, brought canvases of the southern Piedmont landscape and a participatory sculpture that completed itself only through the hands that touched it — the local artist making room for the local community.
Ọládayọ Thomas, a self-taught Nigerian painter based in Berlin, brought Rewiring: A Ritual of the Inner Landscape: alongside his paintings, he asked each person to name something they were ready to release and pin it to a collective canvas, burnt at the close — the ritual made real.
Raffaello Basiglio & Greta Poggi, a local duo of composer and dancer, turned the audience into the instrument with Soglia Attiva, orchestrating the room to move and sound as one body — a single new voice standing in for a future not yet arrived.
The event
Vinili e Vinelli · La Zerba, Volpedo + Terra Nuda, Montacuto · 10–11 July 2026
Day one opened among the vines at Cascina La Zerba, the Cantine Volpi estate in Volpedo. Day two moved up into the hills to Terra Nuda, the rural residency in Montacuto that hosted the international artists. Two sites, two registers — the winery and the residency, the valley and the hill.
The Comet
Each artist agrees with cocoex how much of the proceeds they keep and how much goes to Terra Nuda, the local association that runs the artist residency this campaign sustains.
Impact
Stardust 002 produced nothing for sale — its measure was what passed between people, and what stayed. International and local artists worked the same ground without blurring into one another; the exchange held its differences and was richer for it. Audiences didn't watch — they gave words and gifts, pinned what they were ready to release, moved and made sound. What stayed is literal: Pulkit's vessel remains at Cascina La Zerba, its vine rooting in what the community gave it. Across the festival, visitors were invited to support Terra Nuda — around €400 to date, a direct contribution to the ground that held the work.
Images
Daily recaps, on cocoex Instagram:
