imagination_and

I researched the border between the abstraction of a memory and the physicality of the experience which the memory refers to. I did this by revisiting places which I used to consider my home, but nowadays never visit anymore. In these places I left behind little snail houses which I made from ceramics and glazed in separate colours. I used to believe that slugs (naaktslakken) were snails that had left behind their house and were now wondering around without one. The houses I made are little treasures that I give back to the places that used to belong to me. I want the places to remember me, by giving them little totems as materializations of my memories.

While I was revisiting these places, I noticed that there is a certain physicality to the memories, because being in spaces where I used to come a lot made me feel melancholic. There is a connection between my emotions and certain places, it is hard to describe what this physicality looks like.

After putting the snail houses down, I didn’t feel closure. I felt like I reopened an old book from the library which is written in a language I used to understand very well, but now the words seem to have different meanings.

I filmed this process and will show this film on 3 televisions during the project festival. I also wrote a text as a reflection of the revisiting of the places which used to be home. This text is shown in one of the films.

My research aims to explore those mental and spiritual boundaries that are created within Persian carpets, always a symbol of prayer and spirituality.
I am fascinated by the fact that in Renaissance and Medieval Christian depictions Persian carpets were used to divide and distinguish the characters that belonged to the earthly world from those of the spiritual/aulic world. In this way the carpet became a symbolic portal that
divides two different dimensions.
The starry skies often present in my works are the skies that I imagine belong to the other dimension inside the carpets.
I am curious by the influence that stars and planets have on humanity and the importance that the ancients gave them. The deep study and consciousness of the influence of the celestial bodies on humanity enabled ancient man to communicate with them and to know how to orient himself during his travels.The Latin word Sidus, sider (star) is part of the etymological composition of other Italian words such as: desiderare(to wish), considerare (to consider) assiderare (to freeze): which in their italian etymology refer to ancient times where the stars were closely connected with the daily life of men.

con-sider-are (to consider)= guardare insieme (con altri) le stelle/looking together at the stars.
de-sider-are (to wish)= smettere di guardare le stelle, sentire una privazione, e quindi, poi, desiderare qualcosa/ stop looking at the stars, feeling a privation, and then, wishing something.
as-sider-are (to freeze) = dal latino sideratus/from latin sideratus = colpito dall’influsso maligno di un astro, restando fuori di notte sotto le stelle e gelare/struck by the malignant influence of a star, staying out at night under the stars and freezing
disastro(disaster): dal greco dys (male) + astèr (stella)/from greek bad star, è qualcosa che nasce sotto una cattiva stella/ something originated from a bad star

Upon my arrival in Cittadellarte I continued my practice strongly based on digital imagery and sound as manipulable material using an aggressive contemporary aesthetics.
From a two years old story about forms of life from another planet narrated through a series of musical tracks I materialised the characters through a performative act focused on the dynamics of the textile of a green-screen and the realization of two sculptures made with found objects.
Through the video of the performance I developed a collage work that later took the form of a fanzine, where parts of this fantasy alien story are represented (available for download on this page).
The name of the Fanzine “rebuilding memories” refer to my feeling of familiarity with these characters, fictional memories that I feel I've experienced in my head during the creation of this story.
After the meetings and tutorials I focused on my relationship with raw and formed materials linked to a personal sensitivity, a connection, a dialogue with them.
I developed this new research practice with photos, necessary for me to fix my emotion in seeing or putting together the materials, and small poems/ streams of consciousness .

The living flesh of the sisters still burns on the fires of the Holy Inquisition. A truth hidden behind the black cloud of the collective imagination still burns with them. An imaginary that today brings us back to a story established by the judgments of obtuseness and a short-sighted past.
What remains of these stories and beliefs, stigmatized and ghettoized yesterday as today, begs for a new gaze capable of dismantling or at least smoothing this cutting edge imagery that continues to bleed the memory of these lost lives.
My work, therefore, is an attempt to exhume the ashes of those witch women and all the ills they have sown and from which today the commonplaces on misfortune sprout to reread them and give them, if desired, new life.
A multitude of elements intertwine in the plot of these themes. I am continuing to weave this research, however open to new points of view still unknown to me, through the study and processing of clay, a material that is now precious to me, which already only for its physical characteristics is a magical means, everything and nothing to disposition of the will of the mind of those who want to create.
I am currently dedicating myself to the creation of 'metamorphoses', some inspired by popular testimonies in support of medieval inquisitorial trials, which speak of witches, cats and demonic goats, and others that are freer created by my reworking. Some works instead arise from the ironic reworking of popular beliefs updated to topics still present.
Since I was a child, everything that is not clear and badly seen has captured my attention, for years I have accumulated and then ignored books on these issues, several times I have justified my intentions even before anyone could point the finger, perhaps frightened by a categorization always too narrow, always fascinated by people immersed in realities larger than normal, I tried to learn what I understand today must be experienced. I think my work starts from here.

ARCHEOLOGY OF MEMORY

Archeology of Memory is an artistic practice that arises from an interdisciplinary research –between neurobiology, neuroesthetics and psychology - on memory (constitution of memories). The practice involves a process of shared reflection on one's autobiographical memories, through a driven intersubjective dialogue.

AM: CITTADELLARTE -
PRACTICE WITH THE EMPLOYEES OF THE FOUNDATION

The concept that will be investigated here will be the one of "Demopraxia".
The purpose of AM will be to analyze the dynamics of the "demopractic" concept in the interpersonal relationships of the employees of the foundation.

My research explores drawing as a reflective and imaginal storytelling practice.
During the residency at Fondazione Pistoletto, I started making drawings inspired by stories about the concept of “border/boundaries”, which emerged thanks to my friends here in Cittadellarte: linguistic borders, geopolitical borders, borders with other people or with themselves. I explored their narratives through drawings to understand and meet them through the intimacy of the sign.
Drawing is for me not only a tool of representation, but above all it is a tool to thinking and for creating new thoughts. I find all this in the lines and in the shapes that I create.

My fixation on nostalgia is my starting point for my research. My explorations began by creating a tapestry, an aesthetic prelude. The tapestry is a visual representation of what I mean by the ‘Nostalgic’, specifically referencing children’s media of the late 90s and early 00s. Through the overwhelming need to question my fixations throughout the process, I have learned to further understand their origins. By being honest and vulnerable with the community around me, I have been able to understand my fixation with the nostalgic as rooted in an obsession with the comfortable. This understanding of my intrusive desire for images and spaces of familiarity formed the basis of my final research question: Can one separate the feeling of comfort from the image of familiarity?
I specifically chose to distance myself from the images through the process and media, particularly using photography, the inherently flawed hand replication, and the allowance for the distortion of the image. While this was more of a personal process, the work is also meant to be a visualization of fixation/obsession.