La linea dell'Universo
Cantiano, 2024.
Site-specific artistic installation for the Municipality of Cantiano.
Rubber-printed flag (80x120 cm) with alluvial soil and 3D leaf at the base.
Inaugurated on 10.05.2024
Il fango ha creato una linea.
L'acqua tranquilla sottolinea
un fiore di Loto, respiro d'Oriente.
Petali rosa, intorno il niente.
Dal buio una pura alba.
Amnésia. Un'assordante calma.
Il coraggio della gomma
unica vibrazione sonora.
La terra è mamma,
bandiera di una nuova memoria.
The work is part of the INNESTI project, financed by the Marche Region-Youth Policies and the Presidency of the Council of Ministers-Department for Youth Policies and Universal Civil Service within the Interscambi call.
The artwork is a rubber-printed flag (recalling the material of the boots used after the flood) installed with an oriental design structure made of black wood, with flooded soil and 3D-printed leaves at its base. The artwork is a collage of photography, digital illustration and images created with AI.
Conceptually, the cross-cultural flag enshrines a new beginning and seeks to bring a new vision to cross the mud line and transform the natural element from a source of destruction to a source of creation, through the oriental symbolism of the lotus flower.
As suggested by the title, the work plays on the concept of the mud line and aims to propose a new vision and inspiration, going beyond the mud line, emerging from it, leading to a new creativity, indeed creation of the Universe. The work is a meeting of cultures and human beings, whose essence is the same all over the planet. It can be fascinating to think that the symbol of a different culture can help another in a delicate moment, rebuilding an image of hope and community. The Lotus flower is a very important oriental symbol with a profound character of sacredness. Its roots are in the mud and its stem and leaves grow very high, lying on the water. Despite this, the flower always remains pure, opening its petals at dawn and then closing them again in the dark. It is said to produce amnésia, meaning the possibility of beginning again.
The flower becomes the symbol of a new manifesto, a new flag for the community of Cantiano, afflicted by the disastrous flood of 2022. Like the Lotus flower, Cantiano is reborn from mud, pure, beautiful and creative. Through the use of symbols and cultures, the work conceptually posits mud as a dualism: at once a source of destruction and fertile ground for rebirth. It questions the natural element, its positive and negative possibilities, also in relation to man's ruinous work on the planet. The Lotus flower rising from the mud with its petals opened by the light represents the crossing of the mud line and, therefore, the creation of the Universe in its diversity. The work, through the collage of various visual languages (from illustration, graphics, photography and images created by AI), creates a profound sap of rebirth from the muddy ground, from which the unity of the community emerges as a flag, becoming strength and collective creation. Finally, the flag's rubber backing, echoing the material of muddy boots, represents the symbol of courage as a reaction to destruction to emerge from the mud line, like the Lotus flower. The colours of the work connect to the imagery of the Universe and its vision and dream.
Graphic Design for visual communication and poetry:
3D leaf printing
Backstage
The result of the workshop with the girls and boys of the middle school of Cantiano:
