Lin May Saeed: Thinking Like a Mountain

Discover our widespread two-year program involving local communities and international artists in the territory of the Province of Bergamo

The GAMeC – Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo is pleased to announce “Thinking Like a Mountain”: a widespread cultural program that, starting on 16 May 2024 and for the following two years, will involve not only the museum itself, but also the territory of the Province of Bergamo, with the aim to create an itinerary of shared artistic experiences in order to reflect on issues of sustainability and community.

The program envisages the involvement, over two years, of twenty artists or groups of artists, operating throughout various geographical and cultural contexts in the planning and implementation of a widespread program of events shared with local communities, including interventions in the public space, collective performances and creative workshops.

The first featured artists of the two-year period are Sonia Boyce, Lin May Saeed, Studio Ossidiana in collaboration with Frantoio Sociale, Chiara Gambirasio, and Mercedes Azpilicueta, working in Bergamo, Dalmine, Brembate, and Castione della Presolana.

“Thinking like a Mountain” is an expression coined by American ecologist and environmentalist Aldo Leopold in his book A Sand County Almanac (1949). In the context of the project, Leopold’s expression summarizes and interprets the desire to adopt an alternative point of view—from “a certain distance” —on society and on our actions, in order to foster a fascination for the Earth and an evolved and participatory environmental sensitivity in the territorial context.

The territory in which the project will unfold comprises a highly diverse context, where natural landscapes and highly industrialized urban areas coexist within a complex ecosystem: from the massifs of the Alpine and pre-Alpine range, to the lower elevations of the Bergamo Valleys, through to the urban forests of the Colli di Bergamo Park and the fluvial and agricultural areas of the Bassa Bergamasca (the Bergamo Plain).

The program aims to create a network of productive realities that support the local cultural industry and to add value to the people, knowledge and processes from which the excellence of local manufacturing and industrial products emerge.

An online magazine will accompany the project throughout its development, collecting critical texts, reports and audiovisual contributions, produced by the working group. Topics will range from contemporary arts to design, from architecture to agriculture, from human geography to anthropology. The magazine’s editorial headquarters will be based at the GAMeC.

For more information please visit Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo.