L’Archivio Demarco. La poetica dello spazio e l’artista come esploratore

The Demarco Archive is a cultural institution characterized by a complex profile. The unstoppable dynamism of its founder, Richard Demarco, and the dense network of artistic events he organized against the backdrop of the historic Edinburgh International Festival make slippery any attempt at a definition; placing it within precise geographical and disciplinary limits would in fact risk offering a partial idea of it. The objective of this article is therefore to propose a possible reading through two conceptual nodes: the journey, intended as the discovery of the 'spirit of the place' (genius loci), and the role of the artist as explorer. Both are the points on which Demarco for over fifty years has oriented his career as a teacher, impresario, curator and artist. Undertaking this direction will allow us to touch some of the main initiatives of the archive, such as Strategy-Get Arts and Edinburgh Arts Journey, and to retrace the political, aesthetic, philosophical and pedagogical credo of its founder, whose goal is to re-establish a relationship between ethics and aesthetics as well as restoring the original regenerative function of art.