The Stone Oven House residency grew out of In Kind Exchange, an art project launched in 2011 by Sergei Balovin, a Russian artist who had settled in Shanghai, as a long-term experiment in living outside commodity-money relations, including a trip around the world without a wallet (2013). The project was later continued by the artist duo of Sergei Balovin and Claudia Beccato, Balovin & Beccato.
In 2017 Balovin & Beccato offered a family from the village of Rorà the use of their old farmhouse in exchange for restoring it. The house was restored on a minimal budget by artists and friends who answered the call to help; they became the first residents. Developing the residency became the main focus of Balovin & Beccato’s work. More about In Kind Exchange.
In 2018 restoration began on the neighbouring historic Vernarea estate. Since 2020 the residency has been based there.
The house on the Vernarea estate was built from the stones of a ruined 11th-century church and belonged to the Pavarin family. In 1943–1945 the family of Roberto Terracini, a sculptor from Turin and an Italian Jew, found refuge here: the owners rented them a room at the risk of their own lives. During the war he hid under the pseudonym Ferraguci and signed the drawings he made at Vernarea with it. Digital copies of his works, provided by the artist’s family, are part of the Stone Oven House exhibition together with other artefacts that tell the history of the place.
Since 2017 the association has organised more than 150 events.
