Not Random Art | Page 89

An account that's not easy to get, “histories” with a meaningful still hidden sense, to be discovered with the effort of all the possible meanings (senses, mind and intellect): these immersive experiences of art that I lived when still so young conditioned my way of considering art valiant and are the roots of my art influences, the ones that I can recognize in my artworks.

I do not think that most recent aesthetic experiences can have such a strong influence on my artworks as these first ones, I rather think that what can influence me now are most of all the materials and techniques, together with the sense of identity as a woman.

Some people, both men and women with artistic knowledge, commented that my artworks seem to be made by a man, for the strong and clear style, the different techniques, the “universal” and “not feminine” subjects. At the beginning this surprised me, as I grew up thinking to be equal to men in rights and duties and equal or different from anyone else in sensitivity and capability. The assumption that in the last decades of XX century was a common idea in the society, now it is not, with the role of the genders strongly polarized in a couple of non-equal dull gender roles.

So in present times I can consider such analysis of my artworks as a compliment, although it shows how people are generally considering women artists. Best said, as people consider women.

Could you identify a specific artwork that has influenced your artistic practice or has impacted the way you think about race and ethnic identity in visual culture?

Growing up in a culturally multiform big city like Rome means not to feel as such a big issue the ethnic identity: it's not a problem but a way of being, a part of the cultural identity. I got more acquainted with mine when I started travelling, and then now living in places with a completely different culture: I now live in Sardinia (one of the few places in Europe where Roman culture didn't get through) so the comparison and the continuous differences experienced daily make the ethnic issue emerge. As said before for other reasons the paintings and engravings of Giorgio De Chirico influenced me a lot in my youth. Some of the things that were catching me among his different artworks were the sense of “italianity”, the sensation to live on the ruins of something bigger, the classical culture that they declare, not intended like recovery of the ancient, but like feeling and cultural continuity. All this pervaded with melancholy and a sharp irony.

In 2012/14 I realized a sculpture using his themes, that at the end was some kind of ironic homage to his artworks, called “Piccolo Paese”. It won a prize for the FAI (Fondo Ambiente Italiano), having being selected by Giuseppe Spagnulo and Gianfranco Maraniello.

The substantial influences, at least in my case, come from experiences of the very remote past: the ones that we can't take or let, we only can recognize and take up, but we can't avoid. I appreciate a lot of contemporary artists but I really can't say that someone, or some artwork, really influenced me. I think that we are so much immerse in an environment of images rapidly passing, that we can't really say that we are not influenced by any artist or visual professional passing his works through global communication. I think that nowadays these are the patterns of our visual culture, good or bad that it is, we are widely influenced by that. What I think, or I hope, is not to be deeply affected by that. Of course after the end of the Academies and the end of the avant-gardes, with the total freedom that we have, we are all producing very similar images in any spot of the world: it's the new sacred images, a model to use to create but not to create the same as the others, like in ancient times the Madonna representation was.

What is the role of the collective, individual and your own memory in your artistic practice?

Although our memories seem rationally to be coming from the past, as memory is something dynamic, that can change a lot due to situations (and feelings) what comes out from it is usually not only (or not all) image of the past, but can come from “ourselves”.

The strongest power that it has is not to tell what happened in the past, but to recount something about happenings or feelings that are on a suspended time, that we can only recognize as is not now as the photos of childhood can be.I think that every artist who is not copying the reality uses memory like vocabulary, more or less consciously. My personal memory gets inside my practice without any particular intention. When I design my artwork, I realize that most of the images with which my mind plays comes from some personal meaningful memory, and it seems to me that what I most feel as specifically individual, reveals itself as a clear part of the collective memory when it takes a tangible form. The strongest signs that I can produce, the ones that impact on me deeply, in the inventive process seems to me very personal, but it's the opposite. As part of the collective memory deeply connected with our way of being and with our collective human culture they force my producing process. Usually when I get an image I work on it up to a certain point, but I can't alter its nature more than what that single personal memories allows me to.

How do you see the relationship between emotional and intellectual perception of your work? In particular, how much do you consider the immersive nature of the viewing experience?

How do you see the relationship between emotional and intellectual perception of your work? In particular, how much do you consider the immersive nature of the viewing experience?

artist but also as a human being in dynamically changing, unstable times? In particular, does

Would you like to tell us something about your background? Could you talk a little about experiences that has influence the way you currently relate yourself to your artworks?

All my way is influenced by encounterings.

It began by the meeting with my professor of literature at school. More than giving French or Literature classes, she brought us to discover texts, movies, plays, visual artworks and to think about on what we saw or read.. Thanks to her that I met Pierre Vincke, a theatredirector who was worjink in the tradition of Grotowski ... Both of them have led me to go to theater school. In this school I had meetings. Meetings with artists but also and especially human beings that made me discover. I always need o discover rather than to master a practice. It's probably the reason my encounter with Monica Klingler and Boris Nieslony was decisive for me and led me on the path of Performance Art which is a form still difficult to define. Each performance artist has a different definition of what it is...

Could you identify a specific artwork that has influenced your artistic practice or has impacted the way you think about race and ethnic identity in visual culture?

No I don't have a specific artwork that has influenced my artistic practise but many.

I'm influenced by some philsophers as well as poets or musicians or dancers or visual artists but also by some places or landscapes or atmospheres ... For some years, I was used for example to go to India where I was used to follow some traditionnal muscians or to learn bharatanatyam and practice vipassana meditation... Of course this experience has impacted my art work.... This brought me to think and work differently... My experience in India brought me to discover traditionnal strong art and paradoxally to the way of Performance Art. But there I see one common point: to make no separation between art and life and to be here and now, without projection on the future.

It's difficult for me to speak about race and ethnic identity. But I can say that today we miss more and more this notion of “to be here and now” which is more present in some cultures ... By practising Performance Art, it's my way to be connected to this way of thinking. And even in this field actually it's more and more difficult. The society and the art world brings us more and more to plan in advance, to define our work, more than to do. Just to do. To do what we deeply need.

And of course, my encountering with Black Market International and later the notion of Open Source or Open session via PAErsche have also a big impact on my work. When we go on that, each of us perform by sharing time and space but without trying to convince each other on some common way. This is for me a wonderfull way how we can meet each other, regardless of our origin, our race or our “identity”...

Many of your works carry an autobiographical message. Since you transform your experiences into your artwork, we are curious, what is the role of memory in your artistic productions? We are particularly interested if you try to achieve a faithful translation of your previous experiences or if you rather use memory as starting point to create.

My memory is clearly a starting point to create. I don't have any autobiographical message. I use my personnal experience ( what I feel , what I see, what I learn, what I ear...) to work. It's a motor or a material. I'm not able to paint, so I can't do something with red or white or yellow or black colors. All I have is life, a body alive. And I need to do something with that...

My sensation about life sometimes is too intense then I need to transform this intensity in some action. Some artistic action... If people can take something from this action this is great... but I don't want to give them “a specific message” or to control the translation of my experience.