The summer of BiM kicks off: art, music, cinema, food, yoga and chess to welcome the public to the new heart of Bicocca. With the exhibition Best, Isabelle by Isabelle Wenzel, curated by C41, opens the programme of free cultural initiatives in the regenerating spaces of BiM – where Bicocca meets Milan .
The Milanese summer has a new destination: BiM – where Bicocca meets Milan, the large urban regeneration project in the heart of the Bicocca district, officially kicks off the programme of events sponsored by the City of Milan under the banner of art, culture and sociality. Starting in June, the BiM spaces in Viale dell’Innovazione 3 will host exhibitions, concerts, social dinners, chess tournaments, yoga lessons, film screenings and much more. An opportunity to discover and experience the areas being redeveloped by BiM, which will open up to the city during the ‘building site time’, becoming a veritable incubator of ideas, initiatives and projects developed in partnership with other excellences active in the area.
ISABELLE WENZEL IN THE NEW SPACES CURATED BY C41: PANORAMA AND GALLERY
It starts with the photographic exhibition Best, Isabelle by Isabelle Wenzel, which will be inaugurated on 7 June at 7 p.m. with a vernissage open to the public in the new Panorama and Gallery spaces on the ground and first floors of BiM. Artist, photographer, acrobat, Isabelle Wenzel puts her body in front of the camera and, in the seconds the self-timer gives her, assumes complex poses that draw attention to the body’s sculptural qualities. In doing so, Wenzel realises a short experimental performance in front of the camera, which captures and returns it in the ‘frozen’ form of a photograph. Free of charge until 15 September, the exhibition will be on display at the C41 Gallery, a new space for artistic experimentation on the first floor of Viale dell’Innovazione 3, curated by the creative production company C41. A preview can be admired on the ground floor of the building, in the C41 Panorama space, an immersive place that “anticipates” the contents of the exhibitions set up on the upper floor through in-depth materials.
At the opening, on 7 June, Isabelle Wenzel offers a performance open to the public. The evening continues on the BiM Garden stage with Fuera in concert from 9.30 pm. An explosive and experimental live-show between rap, electronic music and Mediterranean influences. The band from Nola, made up of rappers Same and Diak and producer Jxmmyvis, will present their new album “CIRCO MEZZALUNA”, a project with a strong contamination between genres, in which they fuse songwriting and electronic music with ethnic, jazz and ambient influences, letting the warmth of their Neapolitan origins shine through. Followed by a DJ set. isabelle-wenzel.com
SPECIFIC: A NEW CREATIVE WORKSHOP
7 June also marks the debut of the new collective SPECIFIC, a multidisciplinary design and creative production laboratory that will host artist residencies, exhibitions, workshops, talks and events within BiM in the name of artistic and cultural contamination. SPECIFIC participates in the urban regeneration project undertaken by BiM, creating diffuse interventions that will evolve over time, from the construction phase to the final transformation of the buildings. The collective wants to tell the multiple forms of reality through different looks and languages, born from the experiences of its founders: artists Patrick Tuttofuoco and Andrea Sala, director, author and ‘Hyena’ Nic Bello, artistic engineer Stefano D’Amelio and food design and events expert Alessandra Pallotta. During the inaugural evening on 7 June, SPECIFIC’s spaces on the first floor of Viale dell’Innovazione 3 will be open for the first time: the still empty rooms, like a blank canvas, will be the backdrop for a site-specific work anticipating the collective’s future ideas and projects.
APPOINTMENT AT THE BiM GARDEN
The centrepiece of the temporary programme of free events promoted by BiM will be the BiM Garden, an open-air green space designed by Paola Navone – Otto Studio and landscape architect Antonio Perazzi, with large multifunctional social tables. Here, BiM will present the summer open-air film festival “La linea milanese” (The Milanese Line), curated by Cineteca Milano: a tribute to the originality of the great masterpieces of Milanese cinema that traces a 40-year line between Dario Fo and Maurizio Nichetti, De Sica and Zavattini, Tognazzi and Bianciardi. To anticipate the film screenings, two cult anthologies produced by the Cineteca propose the historic commercials produced in Milan that gave life to the legendary Carosello.
The BiM Garden will also host chess tournaments in partnership with the Gruppo Scacchistico Università Bicocca Milano, a cycle of yoga lessons (Yoga & the City) held by Krama Yoga, as well as concerts and other outdoor activities. Aperitifs and dinners will be taken care of by Fuorimano, an innovative reality of the Milanese food scene that manages BiMstrò, the temporary cafeteria designed by Paola Navone on the ground floor of BiM, already open to the public every day, from breakfast to aperitif. BiM’s temporary programme is divided into thematic areas that anticipate the founding principles of the urban regeneration project, devoted to the wellbeing of the territory, people and society: Circular Economy, Culture + Nature, Wellbeing, Food&Beverage, Music. Each event represents a small ‘taste’ of what will happen once the redevelopment is complete, when BiM will become a cutting-edge work destination at the centre of a new green district, open and integrated with the city.
BiM – Where Bicocca meets Milan
BiM is the new sustainable, efficient and ethical urban regeneration project that by 2026 will transform an iconic building in the heart of Bicocca in Milan into a new green, open and integrated block in the city. An avant-garde work destination where functionality and comfort, services for business and spaces dedicated to culture and sociality coexist; an ecological gathering space, promoting the circular economy and natural, social and cultural biodiversity. BiM is the place where Bicocca meets – but also innovates, inspires, imagines – the Milan of tomorrow. The redevelopment project involves an area of over 50,000 square metres and two buildings located at Viale dell’Innovazione 3 and Viale Piero e Alberto Pirelli 10, just a few minutes by car, tram or metro from the city centre. It is promoted by the investment company Aermont Capital through the Fondo Innovazione, managed by the asset management company Kervis SGR. MTDM Manifattura Tabacchi Development Management Srl, an Aermont Group company, is responsible for the project management and temporary programming of the spaces.
BiM represents an innovative model of urban regeneration, which experiences the path to the inauguration as an opportunity to enhance the district and the city. For the entire duration of the construction site, BiM’s spaces will be animated by a programme of temporary cultural activities, providing a concrete example of how the areas under redevelopment and the ‘waiting time’ represent an opportunity to design the future in a sustainable and inclusive way, inviting citizens to discover and experience the areas under redevelopment as a space for meeting and aggregation. In doing so, BiM immediately sets itself up as a landmark of a rapidly developing urban fabric, a vibrant and inclusive architectural complex facing the world.
C41
Is an independent magazine and creative production house. Focusing on contemporary issues from all over the world, it reflects the most extraordinary visions of our time, involving new generations of style leaders in every field. We represent photographers and filmmakers who share our vision in Italy, France and the Netherlands.
SPECIFIC
SPECIFIC is the new collective of artists and creatives that debuts within BiM, giving life to a laboratory of design and creative production that will host artist residencies, exhibitions, workshops, talks and events in the sign of artistic and cultural contamination. An unprecedented multidisciplinary project to narrate, through different languages, the multiple forms of reality. SPECIFIC will select and host the most interesting realities on the contemporary creative scene, establishing a virtuous dialogue with the building’s tenants, the community and the cultural institutions that animate the Bicocca.
BiMstrò
Colourful, pop, informal, BiMstrò is a temporary cafeteria designed by Paola Navone – Otto Studio on the ground floor of BiM, in Viale dell’Innovazione 3. BiMstrò covers 135 square metres (of which 60 inside and 75 outside) combining food and design, culture and sociality, work and leisure in an unconventional ephemeral architecture. Managed by Fuorimano, a young and dynamic reality of the Milanese gourmet scene, BiMstrò is one of the temporary spaces open to the public during the first phase of construction, until September 2024, to host BiM’s programme of cultural initiatives.
