697 madri (697 mothers) - Exhibition

"697 madri" (697 mothers) is a project which is born from the local area; it is developed through a contact with it and it eventually offers itself to its community.

The participatory performance has given birth to a video work and a giant poster on display in the ancient Church of St. Barnabas in Bondo, just a few steps away from the monument.

Inside the church, the artist also presents a sound and sculptural installation (aluminum molded by hand) that evokes the places where 697 young people were killed: the Adamello mountains and in particular the symbolic cave Corno di Cavento, which was dug by the Austro-Hungarian troops and only recently freed from the ice.

The monumental Austro-Hungarian military cemetery in Bondo
The monumental Austro-Hungarian military cemetery was erected to commemorate the First World War fallen soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was built in 1916 in Bondo in the Valli Giudicarie, at the foot of the peaks where the conflict took place.

Here was the frontline of the war between Austro-Hungary and Italy, along the southern border of the historical region of Tyrol, which coincides today with the administrative limits of the Autonomous Province of Trento with Lombardy.

The cemetery has a monumental architecture, with a grand staircase entrance. It was built with granite boulders of the Breguzzo Valley and with white marble blocks extracted in Trivena. The staircase leads to the cemetery which extends on top of the hill where the memorial stones with the names of the young people are placed in groups.

The cemetery hosts 697 corpses.