TERRAFORMA: Connection and Regeneration

Terraforma is returning to Milan for its 2023 edition from 9th until 11 July. Taking place in the woods of Villa Arconati just outside Milan, Terraforma explores the integration of music and art through workshops, talks and opportunities for meditation. An interaction of musical, artistic and environmental dimensions, Terraforma aims to lead the visitor to free themself from the routine and think about the present – and therefore, the future – in a new way.

SLEEK speaks to Ruggero Pietromarchi, the curator of Terraforma, about the importance of connection, regeneration and hedonism ahead of the 2023 edition.

SLEEK: Federico Fellini once said that to make a film, three films were created: the one imagined, the one taking shape while filming and finally the one finished. In curating a festival, as much as you can plan every little detail, its development remains largely in the hands of the visitors. How do you manage to convey people according to your vision?

Ruggero Pietromarchi: That’s a very interesting question. There are definitely many things in common between a Fellini movie and Terraforma. It’s actually interesting to associate the production of a festival to the production of a movie. It’s quite a magical experience when you need to work, usually one, maybe two years, and then everything comes together in a short time to shoot. The same as a festival, where you put all the ingredients together and then the magic happens.

Related to Terraforma, I felt quite privileged and lucky that this vision actually happened from the very beginning. The idea behind Terraforma was to organise a music festival: creating a space, a platform for artists to express themselves. The other side of it is to communicate to an audience, which is not strictly referential to that kind of niche – to that kind of festival scene – but to create this clash between an experimental scene and a broad audience that could ideally be inspired or interested in new cultural forms. We didn’t want to relate much to this hype of the latest releases of the latest star. But we really wanted to create this positive friction between a scene which nourished us a lot, the experimental music scene and a broader audience. Terraforma had this commitment of not just being a music event but the idea that an event could be a practice of regeneration of a space. All the nonsense and craziness of a hedonistic event such as a Fellini Movie!

S: The festival aims to provide an artistic experience for the visitor but also offers a social experience. A format in which rave and experimental culture are mixed, how did this choice come about? And why Milan?

RP: The festival is defined by discounting experiences, this of course implies a lot of difficulties in terms of organisation because we essentially recreate a temporary community in a space that has no facilities. The site where Terraforma is doesn’t have electricity, water or Wi-Fi. We need to make a huge effort in terms of organisation to provide all these facilities, which the venue doesn’t supply. But this responded to a very precise social necessity.

Why do we want to recreate this festival, this immersive experience? Not because I’m the old school festival goer but because I wanted to try and ring out the audience in a space where they could, in a way, free themself from the routine and from the digital alienation that permeates all of our lives. So if you ask why Milan, this could happen anywhere. I feel it’s the same in Berlin, London or in many of the big cities. Already sleeping just for one day out of your bedroom in a different environment with new people, it really takes this little to make people be open to new experiences, new interactions, and new thinking. It seems banal but it’s not.

S: I have been to Terraforma years ago and I remember that there is minimal distance between the performers and the audience. How do you think the behaviour at festivals has changed post-pandemic?

RP: I don’t think it has changed that much of the festival. Last year was quite a peculiar edition, like for many others, since it was our first after Covid. I don’t think it’s enough to take it as a reference post covid. Many of the ingredients of the Terraforma experience are made for people to find the space to actually think! Of course it’s also a rave at some point, there’s an hedonistic part to it. In general, with this idea of one act after the other it gives you a very specific programming and music creation but also it leaves a lot of space to do something else. So our festival format it’s still there, no matter the covid. The same for the stages, we’re trying to not have barriers between the stage and the audience. There are no gaps in between, no big divisions to remove the performer from the idealisation that has been pushed in this direction, especially for the dance music industry and by the contemporary capitalist economy.

S: At this time in history, Italy has a government far from European inclusive policies. Do you find that a country’s political choices can reflect negatively on creative events and collaborations?

RP: I actually think it increases those kinds of collaborations. Of course it’s very depressing, at least from my point of view. I’ve always felt lucky and at the same time responsible for working in my country. I know it’s a very complex one to work in, especially for culture. I just keep on working and we manage to create our own space. But the institutions are growing exactly in the opposite direction. We actually never had support, even before Giorgia Meloni. There wasn’t any support from any institutions in the city of Milan, the region of Lombardy or the state of Italy. It doesn’t really change, it just pushes us to find new input, strength and desire to create alliances abroad and also in Italy. That’s the only way to survive at this point.

S: You collaborated with SHAPE+? How does it integrate with the festival?

RP: SHAPEe+ is a platform that Terraforma is part of. It’s a network that defines a roast of young artists and helps them to tour around Europe and to develop different works through residencies. It’s not just about live shows but a way to network and support each other as organisations

S: You also collaborated with photographer Jim C. Nedd for the 2023 edition. How did this collaboration come about?

RP: Every year we commission an artwork to a different artist to work on the idea of Terraforma. This idea of terraforming, every artist reinterprets this concept in different ways and develops as a communication strategy. This year is the first time we work with a photographer, Jim C. Nedd, a long time friend of mine, but has also been playing in Terraforma on different occasions. He decided to develop the project in Colombia, where he’s originally from, on top of this volcano with people that get terraformed in the mud. This volcano is essentially melting down because of climate change. There’s also this creepy dystopian feeling that you can get somehow in the pictures which reflects the relationship between man and nature.

S: Sustainability is in the headline of the festival. In what terms can a three day event be sustainable?

RP: A festival from my perspective is a space for experimentation. It’s a social and cultural experiment where you can really see how people behave in certain circumstances. It’s a space where you can bring in new technologies that ideally can also be implemented on a larger scale as sustainable practices.

We perceive Terraforma as a sustainable festival, meaning as a space where we can implement, test, and try sustainable practices. The idea that a cultural event can be useful for regenerating a space, this is the way we spoke about sustainability. The way we approach the site, not just for the sake of the three day events, but try to work on a site that needed our interpretation through our cultural meaning, and at the same time, that needed to be supported to essentially come back to life. That’s the way we approach Villa Arconati, an abandoned 18th century villa, that we try not just to interpret through our vision but also to put a lot of care in restoring the area together with Fondazione Augusto Rancilio. Our sustainability product was really about trying to give new life to the site, new meaning, new contents, new audiences.

S: What can we expect at the 2023 edition that differs from previous editions?

RP: Last year was a very special edition. It was the one after Covid and we had this manifesto: no panels, no workshops, no lectures. Only dance. We came back to Villa Arconati with the idea of finally being together and dancing again. So this year, since last year was pretty much about raving, we are going back to a more organic edition of the festival. We’re bringing a very detailed program of panels, lectures, workshops, installation, not just the music, no headliner. We are working specifically on the Dome, a new architecture inspired by a book ‘Organic Music Societies’. A story from the seventies when Don Cherry moved to Sweden and together with his Partner Moki Cherry, they found this common space to take out music from the traditional spaces and bring it to unconventional spaces. That’s exactly what we’re trying to do with Terraforma. We’re bringing this experimental scene out of the white box environment and bringing together new audiences.