SANT'ARPINO.- Peripherally co-regulatory and permeable, Diamond and Gatón use extensions of their private lives as materials in their studio practice. Evoking touch, complex intimacies and blurry representations of their immediate environments, the exhibition re-contextualises intimate labour. Igual que Long Beach is developed from friendship, and brings to the scene a casual conversation on the conditions of labour, interiors, and femininity.
Formally, Diamond and Gatón come from different backgrounds. Yet, their practices connect deeply, addressing varied forms of eroticism and female-identified social presence and oscillating between permeable ‘pleasure’ and ‘pleasing’ work. There is a gentle framing of reproductive labour, the status of sexuality and domesticity as precarious and invaluable economies that take place inside the home.
Igual que Long Beach serves as a continuation of Tetillas, the first joint exhibition by the two artists, held a year ago at Pauline Perplexe in Paris.
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Residency at Borgo Casamale
Darya Diamond and Esther Gatón will be in residence in the Borgo Casamale community from June 7 to June 20, 2025. Their goal is to integrate their artistic practices and research into the local context, remaining actively present and engaging in a process of dialogue with the inhabitants. They will explore how their artistic narratives might intersect with the everyday life of the territory.
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Unexpected Voices: Ours. Encounters, presences, and dialogues
Igual que Long Beach opens within an evolving curatorial framework of research, experimentation, and co-presence. It follows the successful experience of the Art Summit initiated by Tramandars and includes the presence of choreographer Heli Keskikallio, who will engage in a dialogue with artist Maria Giovanna Abbate—currently in residence at Casa Tramandars in Somma Vesuviana—to conclude the research project Everything That Exists Must Be Sung, initiated during the 2023 Art Summit. This process will lead to performances and the production of new works. Keskikallio resumes her long-term study on silenced voices, The Singing of the Sirens, first presented in performance form in Helsinki in October 2024. Her ongoing research explores the performative power of choral sound, dance, and the female body.
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Biographies
Darya Diamond
Born in 1991, Darya Diamond is a Mexican-American artist based in London. Her practice spans printmaking, sculpture, audio, and video, interrogating literal and symbolic figurations of the body as a primary site of labour. Her work is rooted in ritual and reproductive methods—regenerating and negotiating the promise of transactional intimacy, care, and invisible labour.
At the core of her research are relational ecosystems and contradictory subjectivities that sustain bodies and minds: how can the body serve as a space for mutual aid, power, pleasure, and labour? Body casts and personal surveillance recordings create material landscapes to be reappropriated, recontextualised, and presented as an ethics of care.
In 2024, her exhibitions included: Sugartown at Sebastian Gladstone in Los Angeles, Tetillas at Pauline Perplexe in France, and The Box at Pippy Houldsworth Gallery in London. She has also exhibited at the South London Gallery, Saatchi Gallery (London), the International Ceramics Studio (Hungary), the TreeArt Museum (Beijing), the Zabludowicz Collection (London), and most recently, Import/Export (London).
Upcoming solo exhibitions include Sebastian Gladstone (New York), Import/Export (Warsaw), and Piloto Pardo (London). She holds a Master of Fine Arts from Goldsmiths University of London and recently completed a fellowship at the University of Zurich.
Esther Gatón
Esther Gatón was born in Valladolid, Spain. In 2022 she completed the WIELS Residency in Brussels, and in 2023 she opened a solo show at the CA2M Museum in Madrid, curated by Cory John Scozzari. In 2026, she will present a solo exhibition at the Patio Herreriano Museum in Spain, curated by Rafa Barber Cortell.
Her work has been shown at institutions such as CAPC Bordeaux, Matadero Madrid, La Casa Encendida (Madrid), Patio Herreriano Museum (Valladolid), Navarra University Museum, Fabra i Coats (Barcelona), TEA Tenerife, MUSAC León, and C3A Córdoba. Her writings have appeared in NERO Magazine, ADesk*, Materiales Concretos, Editorial Concreta, and Urbanomic.
She studied visual arts at Saint-Luc in Liège, the University of Barcelona, and Goldsmiths, London. She holds a PhD from the Complutense University of Madrid.
🔗 esthergaton.net
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Christian Taranto
Head curator of Tramandars and researcher, Christian Taranto focuses on unconventional exhibition formats and artist support. He is the founder of Untitled Age Series, a curatorial project offering space to a new generation of system-free artists. With Tramandars and Pu-téca, he initiated a proximity-based curatorial process in Borgo Casamale, rooted in the relationship between artistic practices and the local social fabric.
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Giovanni Ambrosio
Visual artist, photographer and designer, Giovanni Ambrosio collaborates with Christian Taranto by developing the visual identity, documentation, and conceptual design of the projects curated for Pu-téca.
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TRAMANDARS
Tramandars is a collective cultural project founded in Somma Vesuviana (Naples), dedicated to transmitting and passing on art and culture through universal contemporary languages. Established as an association, Tramandars operates through artistic residencies and regeneration projects, collaborating with national and international artists to foster socially and culturally impactful processes.
Tramandars believes in the inspirational power of art as an educational catalyst. Its projects aim to raise critical questions about society and to establish meaningful dialogue between communities, culture, and the environment. Since 2022, it has been collaborating with the FAO as part of the World Food Forum, introducing contemporary art into the global conversation on food sustainability, and with the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in Italy on civil rights initiatives through art.
With an open and collaborative approach, Tramandars acts as a bridge across cultures and artistic disciplines, working toward a cultural legacy that transcends both geographic and temporal boundaries. It is a member of STARE – Italian Network of Artist Residencies and Lo Stato dei Luoghi.
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Casa and Pu-téca Tramandars
Pu-téca is a former “vascio” (a ground-level dwelling typical of Naples) in the Borgo Casamale, transformed by Tramandars into a contemporary art display space. It functions as a votive kiosk for contemporary art, freely accessible 24/7 through a window display lit even at night. Every project hosted at Pu-téca begins with a performative act—an opening ritual that connects the creative process with the local community and with passersby.
Casa Tramandars is a two-story building in the heart of Borgo Casamale, recently renovated by Tramandars and converted into a live-in studio space for artists. The annual residency program welcomes one emerging artist or artist duo at a time, for durations ranging from one week to one month. During their stay, artists are encouraged to produce a permanent site-specific work, to be gifted to the community and integrated into the cultural fabric of the area.
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ARS – Archivio Russo Somma
The ARS – Archivio Russo Somma was founded in 1973 by Dr. Domenico Russo, originating from a family-based theological collection. Over time, it expanded thanks to continuous acquisitions and donations, notably including part of the library of Alberto Angrisani (1878–1953), an important scholar linked to the discovery of the Roman Villa Augustea in Somma Vesuviana.
The library was a key reference point for renowned scholars such as Raffaello Causa (Superintendent of Campania’s Galleries) and Matteo Della Corte (Director of Pompeii excavations). Today, the archive holds over 30,000 volumes focused on a few main disciplines: Ancient History, Naples and Southern Italy, Art History, Mount Vesuvius, Darwinism, Esotericism, Theology, Anthropology, Psychoanalysis, and Italian, English, and French literature in original language editions.
It also contains:
• Around 300 antique prints and views of Naples and Vesuvius
• 1,000 slides of Somma Vesuviana’s monuments and artworks (taken between 1973–1986)
• Autographs and signed books from Benedetto Croce, Gabriele D’Annunzio, Luciano De Crescenzo, Raffaele La Capria, Domenico Menotti Garibaldi, and others
• Restoration of three 17th-century artworks in local churches
• Requalification of the Collegiate Church crypt in 2019
• Long-standing engagement in the conservation of Somma Vesuviana’s cultural heritage since the 1980s
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Opificio Puca
Located in Sant’Arpino (Caserta), the Opificio Puca is a striking example of industrial archaeology. Originally a shoe factory founded in 1912 by Enrico Piro, it later became a food processing plant under Carlo Puca. After decades of industrial activity, the building was transformed into a cultural center by visual artists Francesco Capasso and Maria Giovanna Abbate, supported by a local cultural association.
Today, Opificio Puca is a creative hub that hosts exhibitions, installations, theater performances, and concerts, promoting experimental art and dialogue between local and international artists. With its Liberty-style architecture and expansive post-industrial spaces, it provides an inspiring environment for independent artistic production and open community events.
Among its key projects is OhAhSi! Sul fiume fuori rotta—a hybrid public and participatory art initiative along the Volturno River, designed by Capasso and Abbate to engage local communities in reclaiming the territory through art.
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Pauline Perplexe
Pauline Perplexe is a non-profit artist-run space based in Arcueil, in the southern suburbs of Paris. Founded in 2014, the association occupies two houses—one in 1920s suburban style, the other from the post-war period—both allocated by the Arcueil city council. The space hosts fourteen artist studios and organizes around ten exhibitions annually. Its curatorial program is supported by DRAC Île-de-France and embraces an invitational format. Exhibitions, performances, concerts, workshops, and readings unfold in multiple formats. Pauline Perplexe also develops off-site projects at venues such as AAAAHHH Paris Internationale Art Fair (2020), Bétonsalon, Glassbox, Treize, and the Paris Ass Book Fair at Palais de Tokyo. Its mission is to nurture a swarming, autonomous parallel art scene—artist-led, porous, and open-ended.
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A Collective Cultural Program
Pu-téca – 24/7 contemporary art kiosk
Tramandars – Artist residencies on Mount Vesuvius
Opificio Puca – Water supply company turned contemporary art center
Pauline Perplexe – Artist-run space for exhibitions and studios
Untitled Age Series – Curatorial projects for contemporary art
BSG Studio – Visual identity, communication, and design
CANS Beer Shop – Independent social and cultural venue
The event’s visual identity adopts a minimalist and open-source design approach, based on the EXTRA freeware model created by Giovanni Ambrosio, and features the custom-designed typeface Apfel Grotesk by Luigi Gorlero (@luigi_gorlero_design), ensuring an aesthetic that is accessible and coherent across all participating cultural platforms.
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Further Reading and Insights:
• Exhibition Overview by Pauline Perplexe
kubaparis.com/submission/430855
• Exhibition Announcement & Conceptual Framework by Pauline Perplexe
urbanomic.com/document/sunburns
• Interview with Darya Diamond (EN)
facebook.com/ZabludowiczCollection/videos/1078257452741021
• Georgia Lassner on Darya Diamond – Artforum
artforum.com/events/georgia-lassner-darya-diamond-sebastian-gladstone-1234724228
• Esther Gatón – Emil Lime (YouTube – Spanish)
youtube.com/watch?v=eSk56bPdTvM
• ESTHER GATÓN – Nero Editions
neroeditions.com/autori/esther-gaton
