This talk will put conversation the work of two Italian 20th and 21st century artists, Maria Lai and Virgilio Sieni, who have reflected on how art can build community (indeed transform the very concept of community) through engaged gestures of connectivity. Both artists think about cultural depth - the archaeology of gesture creating spaces in past and present forms - and about how performance can simultaneously suspend and transmute the rhythms of the everyday, thereby opening up new possibilities of revitalisation and the exercise of agency. In rethinking art they reemphasise the significance of thinking historically. For more information, please contact Dr Saul Nelson at sfn23@cam.ac.uk