L’OMBRA, L’ORIGINALE E LA RIPETIZIONE
/ THE SHADOW, THE ORIGINAL AND THE REPETITION
quella cosa che puó succedere ovunque e in qualsiasi modo / that thing that can happen anywhere and in any way
Work background — "On a November evening of 1985 whilst riding his bike home, Francesco, the middle son of my maternal grandparents, was hit by a car and died instantly. He was 31, and I was about 10 months old. Growing up with my grandparents, I rarely heard them talking about him or what had happened. I had always assumed the taboo was the death of a young son. A few years ago, however, after the death of my grandparents, I found a journal written by my grandfather about Francesco, that opened up a more complex reality. The journal was a detailed report of what turned out to be the last two years of my uncle's life and the most acute period of his mental illness and depression."
Although my personal connection to this story is central to the work, it seems that the journey of a man in his 30s experiencing the onset of schizophrenia can also provide a wider perspective on our quest for identity; a metaphor, maybe tragic, of the struggle each individual must face to form and reform, cohabiting with the other, outside and inside oneself.
In this work, photographs from my family archive are reinterpreted and reproduced through alternative printing processes. The colour I have chosen for the gum prints is an invitation to reflect upon the latent violence of a society that draws lines, that isolates. The work also includes a video, a series of self portraits, a sound installation by Portuguese artist Carla Santana, and a text piece.
Video by Francesca Faulin
Sound by Carla Santana (Quatroconnection)
This video, filmed in my home with sound by Portuguese artist Carla Santana, is a journey into the liminal space that opened up for me whilst going through the process of reading my grandfather’s diary for the first time, in a new house, in the countryside. As I tried to adjust to a new environment I found myself looking for a connection with unfamiliar rural surroundings as well as with a family member I have no memory of, while also questioning my own identity.
The hum (drone sound) in the video represents the haptic power of the archive images; whilst the voice – my own voice slowed down – is reciting fragments from a few writings that my uncle left. I see these writings, together with a series of passport photos with annotations on the back I found amongst my uncle's things, as a sort of self portrait.