Maurice Marleau-Ponty called the surface that our eyes are capable of reaching the map of “I can’’. Everything we see is a potential path, it challenges us to walk, it invites us to move. (Elena D’Angelo, from Carta Bianca – Giulia Spreafico, catalogue of the exhibition)
2015, color trasparency 4×5’’
Retraced, is a project divided into two series, dedicated to the great Antarctic trips of the past ten years: the first goes towards the southern Pole of Inaccessibility, reached by the N2i Team in 2007; the other is the one faced by Ben Saunders and Tarka L’Herpiniere in 2014, following the track towards the geographic South Pole that was first walked by R. F. Scott in 1912. Retraced is the attempt of crossing a white space, inaccessible and unresolved, retracing the steps of contemporary men who decided to walk and not to use advanced vehicles. The act of sewing is to take part in these trips of the mind, crossing the satellite image of the spots crossed by the explorers with threads. When taking a picture of the images produced by the satellites I find their limits, the mistakes and the incapacity of reaching the places where this men’s bodies have been in a satisfying manner.
Retraced (P.O.I), 2016 – 7 gelatin silver prints, 30×24 cm
Retraced (South Pole), 2017 – 6 gelatin silver prints, 30×24 cm
What does it mean to inhabit an impossible and invisible space? A faraway place, only reachable through the satellites, like the very centre of Antarctica, becomes closer and material through the colour transparent. To inhabit such a place means to create a connection, to leave behind the sign of your touch. It means to sew the simplest image of a house, in the dark, before being able to see.
In temporary darkness, 2015 – color trasparency 4×5’’, lightbox
Antarctica is a silent and inhospitable place which, to this day, attracts man as it challenges him, escaping any attempt of control. The real aim of the first explorers at the very beginning of the Twentieth Century is the conquest of the centre of the most southern part of the world: a mathematical spot, which is the result of precise calculations and measurements. The will of reaching that place, which is more mental than physical, is an artistic action in itself. In this work the first pictures taken in Antarctica become the place where I put my sign, threads that can take us somewhere else.
7 inkjet prints, variable dimensions
