SANDRO DERNINI Ph.D.

Via Giovanni da Castelbolognese 89, 00153 Rome

Tel./Fax+39.06.99700208; Email s.dernini@tiscali.it; URL www.plexusforum.net

Sandro Dernini, a former biochemist researcher, has focused his interest on multicultural interdisciplinary exchanges between science and art.

Born in 1949, in Cagliari, Sardinia, he received in 1974 a Doctorate in Biology from the University of Cagliari. In New York, in 1997, he completed his Ph.D. in Art Education at the New York University.

Since 1982, Sandro Dernini has participated in the development of Plexus, an international community-based art experience, realizing numerous interactive experimental art & science events and community-based art projects in Dakar, Rome, Sardinia, New York, and Blue Mountains in Australia. He is also the chairman of Plexus International Forum Onlus, a non profit organization, established in Italy, in 1999, to assist Plexus International in its efforts, with particular regard toward Art for Food – Food for Art, a sustainable development community-based project in the Medina of Dakar.

Currently, he is the coordinator of the Forum on Mediterranean Food Cultures, based in Rome, for which has organized three International Conferences with the participation of experts from all Mediterranean countries. He is member of the International Scientific Committee of the Nutrition without Borders and of the Foundation for the Advancement of the Mediterranean Diet in Barcelona. He is also member of the Italian Society of Human Nutrition and of Scientific Committee of the International Interuniversity Centre for Mediterranean Food Cultures Studies in Rome. Since 1990, he is member of the International Society for the Advancement of Living Traditions in Art (ISALTA).

From 1974 to 1978, at the Biochemistry Institute of the University “ La Sapienza,” as assistant of prof. Carlo De Marco, former dean of the School of Medicine, he conducted researches on qualitative and quantitative separations of sulphur and selenium amino acids.

In the 70's, he became involved in the Italian League of Cultural Alternative Associations (L.I.A.C.A.) and co-founded Spazio A, the first multimedia performance space in Sardinia. Moving in New York, in early 1980, he co-founded the Center for Contemporary Italian Culture of New York University and organized many Italian-American cultural events and programs. In 1982, he co-founded Plexus as a performance space in Chelsea, and in 1984, in the Lower East Side, the Shuttle Theatre.

From 1986 to 1989, at New York University, as graduate assistant of prof. Angiola Churchill, co-director of the International Center for Advanced Studies in Art (ICASA), he participated in the organization of several symposia: The Dematerialization of Art; The Redefinition of Art in the Collision of the Post-Modern World; The Convergence of Art and Philosophy; and Art and Societies. Then, until 1994, he served as graduate assistant of prof. David Ecker, chairman of the Art Education Program of the NYU Art and Art Professions Department, and director of ISALTA.

In 1992, as coordinator of the 1992 Christopher Columbus Consortium, he organized in the island of San Pietro, Sardinia, the First International Columbus Reconciliation Forum on the theme The Well Being in the XXI Century.

From 1995 to 1999, he coordinated in Sardinia other three international symposia organized by the Interdepartmental Well Being Center of the University of Cagliari that, since 1994, he assisted in its establishment.

In 1996, in Rome, as coordinator of the Consortium for the Well Being in the XXI Century, on the occasion of the FAO World Food Summit, at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni, he codirected the special event From Welfare to Well Being: Eating Art, Get the Best from Your Food, Food for All, in collaboration with the FAO Food and Nutrition Division.

From 2000- 2002, in Rome, at the FAO Food and Nutrition Division, as consultant, he developed the guidelines of the FAO Network of the Centres of Excellence on Food Quality, Safety and Nutrition.

From 2001-2002, he coordinated the Italian Committee of the international educational initiative Feeding Minds–Fighting Hunger, promoted by FAO, UNESCO and World Bank.

From 2000-2006, at the Institute of Food Science of the University of Rome “ La Sapienza,” as consultant, he developed several nutrition education initiatives.

EROSIONS AND RENAISSANCE SHOW

Plexus International is a network of artists and scientists, that since its beginnings in early ‘80s has created many community-based cross-cultural experimental art & science events, involving on some occasions hundreds of participants across Europe, Africa, Australia and Americas. It has played a seminal role in numerous institutional scientific projects, linking the notion of "art" - as a resource for sustainable development - to the concept of "well being", as a human right for all to enhance the quality of life in the community.

The Plexus International traveling event “Erosions and Renaissance Show” is a global cultural navigation project to raise attention on the increasing forms of “erosions” underway in our living Earth planet. It is focused on the cultural mapping of the dramatic sea erosion of the Door of No Return of the House of the Slaves in the island of Goree ( Dakar), Senegal, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as symbolic “erosions” of humankind universal memory, of all types of erosions, from human rights to biodiversity and living traditions.

“Erosion”: This category includes not only genetic erosion and the erosion of species, soils and the atmosphere, but also the erosion of local knowledge, cultural diversity, living traditions , and the global erosion of human and civil rights, freedom and peace . We are losing biological resources and traditional knowledge relating to the management of ecosystems and biodiversity”

The Erosions and Renaissance Show, traveling on board the Ark of the Well Being, from 2004 to 2006, has been staged in Dakar, Ballarat ( Australia), Lecce ( Italy), Rome, New York, Barcellona, Dakar, Las Palmas, Sassari ( Sardinia).

Act I was presented in Dakar, Senegal in June 2004 at the 2° Triangle de l’Art Festival. It called attention to the sea erosion at the “Door of No Return” in the House of Slaves on Goree Island, a UNESCO World Heritage site, as a symbol of all humankind erosions.

Act II was staged in Ballarat, Australia in December 2004 for the Eureka Rising Rebel Festival by Culture Lab International. It called attention to the erosion of Aboriginal living traditions, symbolically represented by a sacred emu eggs site in the Maroota Plateau, in the Blue Mountains.

Act III started in Lecce, Italy, in May 2005 at the Academy of Fine Arts. It ended on October 1 2005, at the National Academy of Dance in Rome, in collaboration with the Food Science Institute of the University La Sapienza of Rome. This Act has the aim to highlight the erosion of the healthy Mediterranean lifestyle and the growing prevalence of childhood obesity.

The Act IV started in New York on December 10, 2005, Human Rights Day. It concluded in Barcelona on March 8, 2006, International Women’s Day.

The Act V l anded on May 14, 2006 at the Door of No Return of the House of the Slaves in the Island of Goree and measured the advancement of its sea erosion. The documentation together with the reproduction of all artists’ digital contributions arrived from all over the world, were exhibited at the ancient city hall of the Medina of Dakar, on the occasion of the 3 rd Triangle of Art Festival,held from May 19-21, 2006, within the “DakArtOff” of the 7° Biennale of Contemporary African Art. It concluded in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, on July 21, 2006, at the House of Christopher Columbus, on the occasion of the training seminar, Advancements on Nutrition and Obesity, organized by Research Group on Nutrition of the University of Las Palmas University in collaboration with Nutricion sin Fronteras.

The Act VI landed on November 24, 2006 in Sassari, Sardinia, to call for attention on the increasing desertification in Africa and in the Mediterranean area

Door of No Return at the House of the Slaves in Goree ( Senegal) became for Plexus a symbolic portal for repatriation of art and memory, especially of the diaspora of slavery, back into the communities from where the works and their cultural history were harvested.

In 1988, in Gorèe, Dakar, Plexus International presented at the House of the Slaves, a UNESCO World Heritage site, the Manifesto Art Slavery on board of a metaphoric artists slave ship as a statement against any form of human slavery. S ince 2002, at the House of the Slaves, every two years, Plexus International is measuring and mapping with exactitude, certified by the Mr. Joseph NDiaye, the House’s curator, the advancement of the sea erosion in front to the Door of No Return, as symbol as symbolic “erosion” of humankind universal memory. In 2008, it will be 20 years that Plexus International is keeping attention on the erosion of the House of the Slaves.

LE VOYAGE CONTINUE

A MULTICULTURAL AESTHETIC INQUIRY INTO "PLEXUS BLACK BOX," AN INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY-BASED ART PROJECT , 1997 dissertation abstract