ART DINERS announces its 3rd season with artist Catriona Gallagher. Running from 7th to 10th October 2023, it will present a contemporary reading of the subject of myth. ART DINERS is curated by Marta Gaudino, Irene Machetti and Alessia Simonetti, in partnership with Sa.L.A.D and with the support of the British Council, British School at Rome and Artable.

Season III presents a solo-show and a performance in the fascinating venue of Villino Sartorio, a villa usually closed to the public and home to many important artists’ studios. The artist’s work starts from the study of pellitory, a plant deeply connected to mythology, to explore urgent issues from a socio-cultural point of view. Gallagher’s solo-show presents the film Perdikaki and a selection of the Pellitory Study, also called Collector’s Archive (2013-18): 150 drawings, notes, anecdotes, diagrams, texts, pressed specimens that question the notions of existence and coexistence in today’s world. Through botanical processes, field observation, historical-mythical research and symbolic references, Gallagher meticulously mapped the growth of the pellitory (in Greek, ‘perdikaki’) in the urban environment. 

The opening performance will activate the artist’s work, in dialogue with a food-happening specially conceived by Irene Machetti: an edible garden populated by herbs and plants connected to mythology and sharing a common ambiguity. Like a pharmakon, they can either cure or be poisonous, just like the pellitory. 

Exhibition review and interview with ART DINERS