Bianco-Valente, Connecting Code Ercolano, 2023-2024
The project is curated by Benedetta Carpi De Resmini with the support of Variabile K in collaboration with CAP - Cities Art Projects.

Second Hand, 2024, engravings on 6 marble slabs, 136x67 cm each, Piazza Carlo di Borbone, Ercolano

Ercolano is a land of returns. Many young people who left the city to study or seek work decide, at a certain point in their lives, to return. They get active, often together with others, to make their future flourish here, as if they felt the need to honor an ancestral promise made to this land.
From these considerations, and from the great maritime tradition of the city, which also includes people who embark to work as sailors, comes the performative act Second Hand.
In the workshops and meetings held in Ercolano, Bianco-Valente asked two people at a time, of different ages or life stories, to cooperate in tying two ropes together with a knot. Each could use only one hand: to succeed in the attempt required good coordination of movements and harmony of intentions. The knot is a metaphor for the bond that people express with their territory; the second hand is not one's own, but that of the other person, with whom one must learn to cooperate to achieve goals that would be impossible to conquer alone.
From photographs documenting these performative acts, drawings were created and then engraved on marble slabs installed on the parapet of the new Piazza Carlo di Borbone, which overlooks the archaeological excavations of ancient Herculaneum.

Second Hand, 2024, engravings on 6 marble slabs, 136x67 cm each, Piazza Carlo di Borbone, Ercolano


Second Hand, 2024, engravings on 6 marble slabs, 136x67 cm each, Piazza Carlo di Borbone, Ercolano

Second Hand, 2024, engravings on 6 marble slabs, 136x67 cm each, Piazza Carlo di Borbone, Ercolano


Second Hand, 2024, engravings on 6 marble slabs, 136x67 cm each, Piazza Carlo di Borbone, Ercolano


Second Hand, 2024, engravings on 6 marble slabs, 136x67 cm each, Piazza Carlo di Borbone, Ercolano

Second Hand, 2024, engravings on 6 marble slabs, 136x67 cm each, Piazza Carlo di Borbone, Ercolano


This Together, 2024, Mosaic with marble and ceramic tesserae, 275x184 cm, Traversa II Mercato, Ercolano. Mosaic artist Federica Castro

For This Together, Bianco-Valente drew inspiration from a drawing by a very young workshop participant on the symbolism of knots: an octopus having fun tying knots with its tentacles. Reworked by the artists, the drawing became the basis for a mosaic installed near the municipal market, frequented daily by many people from Ercolano.
The ropes, all knotted together to form one large knot, are a metaphor for the many family units that interweave their life experiences in the city.
It was to the inhabitants of Ercolano that the artists asked for everyday ceramic objects as donations, such as plates, cups and vases, which were then shattered and used as colored tesserae for the mosaic, together with traditional white, gray and black marble tesserae.


This Together, 2024, Mosaic with marble and ceramic tesserae, 275x184 cm, Traversa II Mercato, Ercolano. Mosaic artist Federica Castro


With Tact, 2024, Mosaic with marble tesserae, 75x75 cm, Via Panto, Ercolano. Mosaic artist Federica Castro

With Tact is symbolically a knot that connects reality to an immaterial dimension: a QR code created in mosaic, composed of small white and black marble tesserae, inspired by the numerous decorative mosaics of the domus of ancient Herculaneum.
The work is installed on Via Panto, at the intersection with Via Pugliano, the famous street where the secondhand clothing market has been held daily since the post-war period, making Ercolano famous.
The code is functional and leads to a website that documents, with numerous photographs and texts, the process lasting over a year, consisting of site surveys, workshops, meetings and discussions, from which the three artworks in public space of Bianco-Valente's Connecting Code project emerged, curated by Benedetta Carpi De Resmini.

With Tact, 2024, Mosaic with marble tesserae, 75x75 cm, Via Panto, Ercolano. Mosaic artist Federica Castro


With Tact, 2024, Mosaic with marble tesserae, 75x75 cm, Via Panto, Ercolano. Mosaic artist Federica Castro


With Tact, 2024, Mosaic with marble tesserae, 75x75 cm, Via Panto, Ercolano. Mosaic artist Federica Castro