Said Dokins The Bloop Journey

These huge murals address the notions of identity, memory, resilience and entropy as metaphors of today's social turbulence.

As the year is coming to an end, I want to share with you one of the top projects of Said Dokins during 2019: his collaboration with Biokip Atelier, an adventure that took more than two months between Italy and Spain, and positively impacted specific communities in both countries. I’m referring to BLOOP International Proactive Art Festival 2019, usually brought off in Ibiza, and this year for the first time, had an edition in the city of Milan, where the journey began.

AMA. VIA DEL TURCHINO, MILANO

Said Dokins @saidokins + Biokip Labs + Via del Turchino residents, AMA, 2019.

Photo: Malaka

First Stop. Via del Turchino, a Milan’s suburb located in the area of Calvairate / Ortomercato. There is the Quartiere Ettore Ponti, an example of fascist and racionalist architecture of the late 1930s, that Dokins intervened with 3 murals which reflect the tensions and contradictions of the neighborhood, posing, at the same time, messages of respect, connections, memory and freedom within the community.

Is well known that on the past few years, Said Dokins has undertaken the project Stories of a Word, where he collects key words that he takes from his encounters with local people to develop his proposals of urban interventions. This time, through interviews, reunions, and activities, Biokip and Dokins established a deep dialogue with the community, where they were able to learn about the history of the neighborhood by listening to the stories of the elders, who told them about the disasters of war and fascism, as well as the new experiences that they’re leaving today, young people and kids also shared their dreams and expectations.

The result was a word assemblage, that included phrases about the place and the names of the participants, submerged in the palindrome AMA, on the walls of the three of the facades of the residential complex.

Said Dokins @saidokins + Biokip Labs + Via del Turchino residents, AMA, 2019.

Photo: Biokip Labs

Said Dokins @saidokins + Biokip Labs + Via del Turchino residents, AMA, 2019.

Photo: Andrea Scuratti

“This project is about creating a comfortable place for knowledge and memory. The dialogue with the inhabitants of Via del Turchino, made me think about anecdote and personal stories as a source of knowledge, when a person feels comfortable telling something, they can share very deep information, that in another situation they wouldn’t reveal… the process wasn’t easy, first, they believed that I was another politician of those that promise lots of things, then they realized that it was just about sharing”, comments Said Dokins.

Said Dokins @saidokins + Biokip Labs + Via del Turchino residents, AMA, 2019.

Video: Malaka

PALIMPSESTOS. MILANO DESIGN WEEK

Second stop. The District of Tortona, a neighborhood well-known in Milano for its independent studios of art, fashion, and design. There, Said Dokins took part in the circuit of official exhibitions of the Design Week Milano, with Palimpsestos, a show that looked over the main conceptual and aesthetic concerns of the artist, focused on the performative dimension of writing, the processes of constructing memory through inscription, the resignification of the symbolic, and the relations people establish with public space. The show included a group of unique wooden paintings and audiovisual pieces created especially for the Bloop Showcase in the BLOOP FESTIVAL MILANO, in collaboration with Biokip Atelier, as well as a series of Limited Edition of laser cut wooden calligraphic artworks, never seen before.

Said Dokins @saidokins, Ethereal 01, 2019. Produced in Biokip Labs

Palimpsestos Bloop Showcase. Said Dokins @saidokins,

ENTROPY. IBIZA , SPAIN

Said Dokins @saidokins , Entropy, 2019. Ibiza, España Bloop Festival 2019

Third Stop. Sunny Ibiza, first home of Bloop Festival. For Edition 2019, Dokins created a great mural that fully represents the concept of entropy, exploring its connections with contemporary society, where chaos and disorder generate new dynamics that redefine the ways we think and act as a group and towards the environment we share.

The creation process itself was entropic, because the formal and compositional elements appear in the beginning as a complete chaos: strong colors and emotional strokes, in contrast with the concentric circles nestled, generating movement. The contents of the mural came from the investigations of the artists in the web on the concept of reality.

Said Dokins @saidokins , Entropía, 2019. Ibiza, España Bloop Festival 2019

Said Dokins @saidokins , Entropía, 2019. Ibiza, España Bloop Festival 2019

Available prints:

+++