The tablecloths were presented on Saturday, October 5, 2024, in the garden of Casa Testori, where a celebration open to all members of Casa Nostra and La Benefica, to the residents of Novate Milanese, and to the public of Casa Testori took place.
The stories, generations, and people who met through “La tovaglia tutta attorno” came together in a shared narrative, as well as in an artwork that will endure into the future. The two tablecloths were donated by the artist and Casa Testori to the cooperatives Casa Nostra and La Benefica, which, around and with these works, will be able to organize new gatherings and celebrations like this one.
In the spring of 2024, Ilaria Turba met for the first time the residents of Casa Nostra and La Benefica, two long-standing social housing communities in the area of Novate Milanese. Through conversations, stories, and exchanges, the artist—thanks to the crucial collaboration of the cooperatives’ tenants—conceived and created the artworks currently on display in the first-floor hall of Casa Testori until December 21, 2024, which also give the project its title: “La tovaglia tutta attorno” (“The Tablecloth All Around”).
During the creation of the project, Turba literally stepped into the courtyards and homes of the people of Novate to meet them and let them get to know her, in the shared spaces of their neighborhoods and apartment buildings. There, she collected archival materials, handed directly to her by local residents, which she digitized by scanning before promptly returning them to their rightful owners—people who were sharing private and meaningful traces of their lives and were therefore unwilling to part with them.
Photographs, letters, postcards, and objects—once transformed into uniform images—were printed and used in a series of workshops led by the artist and hosted in the Casa Testori pavilion. Participants cut out, combined, and reassembled the large amount of material to create the decoration for the two tablecloths. Children, parents and grandparents, friends and neighbors, strangers who learned to know one another—all joined Ilaria Turba in the creation of the work.
Casa Testori, winner of the Cariplo Foundation “Sottocasa” 2023 Call, invited artist Ilaria Turba to conceive a participatory and public art project in the area of Novate Milanese, involving two historic social housing cooperatives: La Benefica and Casa Nostra. Thus, “La tovaglia tutta attorno” was born.
The Two Cooperatives Involved
La Benefica, founded in the summer of 1901 and active with its first constructions since 1903, has from the beginning aimed to purchase land and build homes for workers, viewing housing as an instrument of “redemption” that could foster the well-being and improvement of the working class.
Casa Nostra, on the other hand, was established in 1948 with the goal of rebuilding the spaces and places destroyed during World War II. Inspired by the principles of Catholic Social Teaching, the cooperative is based on the home-family pairing, which reflects on a social scale the relationship between city and community.
The Artistic Process
In her practice, Ilaria Turba intertwines visual experimentation with other disciplines such as the social sciences, performance art, and oral history, giving life to interdisciplinary projects that take place within specific communities, groups, and territories. Bringing her artistic knowledge and approach to Novate, Turba collected more than 30 family archives, gathering photographs, fabrics, letters, objects, paintings, and postcards. After the collection phase, residents of the two cooperatives took part in a series of workshops where their archives were blended into a set of collages that the artist later used as the decorative motif for the final artwork: the tablecloth. This everyday object, familiar to us all, becomes an essential centerpiece on festive tables.
The Artwork and Final Event
The idea of creating a printed fabric took shape during the first phase of meetings between the artist and the participants. The finished works, printed by Ratti Fabrics in duplicate, were donated to the two cooperatives to be used during gatherings or displayed in common spaces as banners. The tablecloths were presented on Saturday, October 5, 2024, in the garden of Casa Testori, during a celebration open to all members of Casa Nostra and La Benefica, to the residents of Novate Milanese, and to the general public of Casa Testori.
Special thanks to Fondazione Cariplo for its invaluable support and to Ratti Fabrics, technical sponsor of the project.
Graphic design by Sara Bianchi – Studio Atto.
