Arnia

2014, Quadraro Rome

Technique: mixed – poster, Lumen paint

The portraits chosen show every-day people in the act of holding their breath: on the one hand they represent and simulate that state of constriction and suffocation that many people have suffered and experienced (many of whom were probably in the resistance) caused by deportation; and on the other hand, the act of holding their breath underwater, recalling the concept of resisting.

Location: in and around (in the case of the itinerary performance) the Quadraro neighbourhood,

Parents of D. Chiesa Elementary School, on the corner of Via Marco Decumino and Egerio Levio.

Description:
The work consists of a recreation of a beehive structure through hexagonal paper posters recreating glued to the wall. The basic hive structure was highlighted through a pictorial intervention with white or lumen colour: transparent by day, fluorescent at night. The dimensions of each hexagon fit within a 60 × 60 cm square. There are about 40 hexagons, 31 of which depict close-ups of people in the act of holding the breath underwater and the remaining hexagons are black and white. The work is conceived as a work in progress, linked to the time and the posters will gradually fade to leave on the white hive structure behind.

The portraits chosen show every-day people in the act of holding their breath: on the one hand they represent and simulate that state of constriction and suffocation that many people have suffered and experienced (many of whom were probably in the resistance) caused by deportation; and on the other hand, the act of holding their breath underwater, recalling the concept of resisting.

To further amplify this sense of claustrophobic and constraint due to imprisonment, I wanted to force these same portraits inside hexagons that form a large hive: the “Nido di Vespe” (wasp nest).In addition, choosing ordinary people at work (the images are of people I know, who are part of my daily life) is a kind of warning: the awareness that it could happen again, as it has in some parts of the world, as it happened to my grandfather, who died in Birkenau.

The choice of the school is conceptually part of the work: the school is a meeting point for various realities, different generations, different situations. School is the place where human knowledge is transmitted. The school becomes a metaphor for a time machine, a human crossroads that reminds us not to forget, to pass down what happened from father to son, from teacher to student.
La scelta della scuola, infine, vuole essere un invito a inserire nei testi scolastici quello che è accaduto il 17 aprile 1944.

Finally, the choice of the school aims to invite school textbooks to include what happened on April 17, 1944.

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