Through a two-month residency for each of the four invited artists—Bekhbaatar Enkhtur (Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, 1994), Agnese Spolverini (Viterbo, 1994), Martina Melilli (Padua, 1987), Matteo Pizzolante (Tricase, 1989)—the project explores a vision of the South understood not only as a place rich in complexity, but also as an opportunity to adopt a sideways gaze prompted by constant questions.

The title draws inspiration from the red planet, an outpost that has always evoked in the collective imagination the vision of a remote place linked to the desire for exploration.

Despite its distance, Mars paradoxically emerges as a possibility for discovery, heralding something that, while on the one hand has yet to be fully realized, on the other retains a strong utopian drive toward its ever-approaching realization.

Following this thread, the South emerges not only as an exotic destination but also, and above all, as a potential impetus and encouragement for experimentation and utopian aspiration; a potentially limitless frontier capable of shifting and reforming continuously, taking on ever-changing contours and forms.

A realizable utopia, says Yona Friedman, is only seemingly a contradiction in terms.
Believing in a utopia while remaining realistic is not incompatible; “a utopia is, par excellence, achievable” provided the necessary collective consensus is obtained, because a utopia imposed by force is no longer such.
The South, therefore, as a space where one can practice an exercise in mobile and transitory orientation, to direct one’s gaze in unexpected directions.

A place where apparent weaknesses can be transformed into strengths, overturning paradigms to design a new and radical imaginary. The artists invited for A Sud di Marte are therefore called upon to undertake a journey toward and within the South, understood not only as a geographical location but as a working methodology.