Horizon 001

Closed · cocoex × Slow Food Tortona · hosted by Pro Loco Carezzano

Horizon begins before the artist does. In September 2024, during the Vinili e Vinelli festival in Carezzano, colli Tortonesi—hosted by Pro Loco Carezzano—33 people gathered for a Future Lab to imagine models of sustainable tourism for their territory. The question wasn't abstract. These were local residents, festival visitors, farmers, and travellers, ranging from 21 to 70+, from 10 nationalities, in the same room.

Together they proposed slow-tourism routes connecting local producers and prioritising intergenerational exchange—concrete visions for a territory that lives or dies by how it is visited. The four visions that emerged were named OAK, CHERRY, BEE, and DANDELION. Memo Vithana, as embedded artist, translated each into visual form: first as AI-generated renders, then as four full paintings completed in 2025.

The cohort voted on the NGO they trusted to carry their visions forward. Slow Food Tortona APS was selected. A formal report was delivered. Slow Food integrated the community's proposals into their plans.

In summer 2025, roughly half the original cohort reconvened at Pro Loco Carezzano. Slow Food presented the concrete projects that had grown from the Lab's visions. The group voted on which project would receive the funds raised—the first analog test of community-directed fund allocation that cocoex has run. The Startnext fundraising campaign raised €375, with additional proceeds from the sale of artworks and prints.

The artworks—prints, paintings, and digital editions—remain available.