ALA PRESENTS CLOUDY CARE BY CATHERINE BIOCCA  

ALA presents the work CLOUDY CARE by artist Catherine Biocca, winner of the 2024 edition of the ALA Art Prize, an initiative of ALA For Art, the project connecting entrepreneurs Fulvio Scannapieco and Vittorio Genna, at the head of the ALA Group, to contemporary art. 

From 28 October the new artwork, awarded the first prize of this fourth edition of ALA Art Prize, will be on display in the ALA headquarters in Naples, at the Mediterranean Theatre in the Mostra d’Oltremare Park, thus offering the public the opportunity to learn about the project started by ALA in 2021 with the aim of creating a collection of contemporary art which has now become part of the Company’s daily life, acting as a bridge with the outside environment and the territory.  

Catherine Biocca’s project was selected by the ALA Art Prize Scientific Committee composed of Giovanni Carmine, Director of the Kunsthalle in San Gallo and curator of Art Basel Unlimited, Eugenio Viola, Artistic Director of MAMBO – Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá and curator of the 24th Bienal de Arte Paiz in Guatemala and Alessia Volpe, Exhibition Manager at the Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection in Paris.
In her practice, Catherine Biocca uses a wide variety of techniques and materials, from drawings to audio-video installations and animated sculptures, that lead the viewers into an environment to be traversed. Biocca is deeply linked to an imagery that draws inspiration from the internet, advertising, cartoons, the legacy of her childhood memories and the influences of digital culture. 
She mixes irony and cynicism, creates dystopian and ambiguous situations, which are attractive and repulsive at the same time, mastering the web communication strategies of overlapping meanings and multiplication of images, in order to generate works that, somewhat nostalgically and wistfully, tell us about absurd and estranging aspects of everyday life. 

In response to the open call for ALA Art Prize 2024 – Notes on taking care, launched with the purpose of stimulating reflection and exploring the phenomenology of care, Catherine Biocca has presented the project CLOUDY CARE. 

CLOUDY CARE is an interactive work consisting of several installations set up, for the first time in the history of the Prize, in multiple areas located in various spaces of the ALA Headquarters, such as passageways, rest areas and shared spaces. 
The work is made up of different units that recur in a modular way in each installation: at its center there are three traditional telephones fitted on wall shelves, which allow participants to pick up the phone and listen to positive and encouraging messages, recorded and activated by a hidden audio system. This experience, designed to offer an emotional connection and a sense of comfort, involves both visitors and ALA team, fostering moments of authentic and deep sharing.
Near the telephones, human figures made of a light and soft cloud-like material stand against the wall, suspended in mid-air, creating an effect of softness and three-dimensionality. The figures, wrapped up in an embrace, convey a deep sense of intimacy and connection, integrating with the surrounding clouds. 

CLOUDY CARE offers meaningful breaks for the ALA team, promoting a work environment based on mutual care and empathy. The “healing calls” are not just symbolic gestures, but an opportunity to build an organizational culture that puts everyone’s well-being first. Picking up the phone you can hear phrases like: “You deserve to be kind to yourself, even in your busiest days. Speak to yourself with the same compassion you would offer a friend”, or,  “Today, allow yourself to breathe and exist. Close your eyes, take a deep breath and let go of all the tension in your body”. Each message of love and support becomes a precious moment to reconnect with the values of community and solidarity, transcending the purely artistic aspect and touching the heart of human experience. 

The voices that animate the installation belong to the people  who daily inhabit the ALA spaces, the team of professionals who were involved in the realization of the work,  namely to read some of the care phrases taken by the artist from online forums and self-care chat rooms. 

“With the CLOUDY CARE project we celebrate the importance of art as a means to create meaningful connections and moments of reflection within our work environment.” – says Vittorio Genna, ALA’s Vice President, “Catherine Biocca’s installation is not just a visual work but an interactive experience that invites each of us to take a moment to listen to others and to ourselves and reflect. It helps us to promote a corporate culture that values the central role of people as well as the individual and collective well-being. The active participation of our team, involved not only in the evaluation phase of the shortlisted projects identified by our Scientific Committee, but also in the production phase of the work, is a further piece that adds to the path of ALA For Art and confirms the importance of keeping up an open dialogue between art and business that enriches our work by enhancing everyone’s contribution”.  

In this special edition of the ALA Art Prize 2024, the Scientific Committee has chosen to award a Special Mention to Veronica Bisesti, whose project Partitura della nascita (2024) has won an additional production prize to cover the costs of the artwork, which will be presented at ALA Headquarters in the coming months. 

The ALA collection has also been enriched with a new group of works selected through the ALA For Art Acquisition Program 2024, which has welcomed Eugenio Tibaldi, Alice Visentin, Corinna Gosmaro, Effe Minelli among the artists in the collection.  

“We are happy to see the collection grow with the artworks of Eugenio Tibaldi, Alice Visentin, Corinna Gosmaro, Effe Minelli and, coming soon, Veronica Bisesti, the winner of the Special Mention of this year’s Prize edition. Every work and artist becomes part of our corporate history, a means by which we can convey our company culture and build meaningful relationships with our reference communities” concludes Fulvio Scannapieco,  President of ALA S.p.A. 

The works by Biocca, Tibaldi, Visentin, Gosmaro and Effe Minelli  are added to Acque, Amare by Bea Bonafini (winner of the 2023 edition of ALA Art Prize), Luciferasi by Alberto Tadiello (winner of the 2022 edition of ALA Art Prize), at UP by Mariangela Levita (winner of the 2021 edition of the award) and the works of Andrea Bolognino, Antonio Della Guardia, Giorgia Garzilli, Giulia Piscitelli, which are also part of the program of annual acquisitions launched in 2022 with the aim of enriching the ALA collection. 

The evening of 28 October is also an opportunity to present the new volume dedicated to the experience of ALA For Art 2023 through a book describing the work of Bea Bonafini, Acque, Amare, winner of the third edition of ALA Art Prize and other works in the collection, with contributions by Eugenio Viola and Alessia Volpe.