SPE - PERFORMANCE AND EXHIBITION SPACE     THURSDAY-SUNDAY    H 14.00-18.00
15 NOVEMBER 2014 - 29 MARCH 2015

Moira Ricci
Dove il cielo è più vicino
(Where the sky is closer)
CURATED BY EMANUELA DE CECCO

UNTIL 29 MARCH 2015

Dove il cielo è più vicino is a trajectory of a look, a tension, a desire. As with all movements aimed in this direction, it can only succeed by carrying its weight lower to the ground. A solid base is required in order to climb. Trees know this; that to grow they need firm roots. Climbers know this; that they need fixed points in order to be able to climb. Everyone knows this; everyone who jumps, dances, tries to heal, tries to fly, who prays, dreams, who wants to change, who wants to escape. It is a necessary journey for everyone. Whoever wants to go to his heaven must feed his earth, care for it and make it fertile. How can it be otherwise? But what happens when this is no longer possible?

The artist, as always, draws from personal experience and knows well the consequences of the question. At the centre of this work is the earth, an earth in crisis, less and less cultivated, increasingly abandoned by the farmers who are unable to support themselves with their work. Her father, uncle and a cousin are the only family members remaining who live like this and have no intention of leaving the farm, out of respect for the toils of the preceeding generations. What can be done?

"Dove il cielo è più vicino", says the artist, “is a prayer to the heavens, but also a warning to those who control us from above, a portrait of farms that have lost their identity and their significance, and an attempt to escape and at the same time the inability to act”.

There are three works on display that interact poetically with this condition. A series of photographs of houses separated from their farms in the Maremma region during the Reclamation, houses that the artist, by erasing the doors and windows, has transformed into inert testimonials of this situation. In the two videos that follow, the situation becomes animated, large works in progress, desires.
The first is a view from above of two flaming circles that refer to the English legend of the devil-Grim Reaper, created by the same plough used to regenerate the earth. The second documents the work to construct a kind of threshing-spaceship with her father, friends and family, to escape, an attempt that was destined to fail, but which, in that failure, opens up a space to do something here, with what it is, now, together….

Moira Ricci was born in Orbetello in 1977, and lives and works in Italy. Her work (photography, video, installation), often autobiographical, explores the themes of individual and social identity, family history, home and links with native territory, weaving technological invention with the rediscovery of the image of belonging. Awards: First Riccardo Pezza Prize, (2000); Location1's International Residency Program, New York (2007); XXIII Edition Gallarate Pezza Prize (2009); Selected for the  Discovery Award, Les Rencontres D'Arles Photography (2009). Solo exhibitions: "Per sempre con te fino alla morte", Galleria D'Arte Contemporanea Laveronica, Modica-Ragusa, 2012; "Da Buio da Buio", curated by Andrea Lissoni, and XING, Padiglione D'arte Contemporanea, Ferrara, 2009; "Interfuit", curated by Emanuela De Cecco, Artopia, Milano, 2006. Group exhibitions: "We have never been modern" curated by Maria Rosa Sossai/Angelo Gioè, Song Eun Art Space, Seoul (ROK); "Autoritratti. Iscrizione del femminile nell’arte italiana contemporanea" various curators, Mambo (Museo d'arte moderna di Bologna), Bologna, 2013; "Family talk" curated by Marco Antonini, FUTURA Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague (CZ), 2012; "14e édition de la quinzaine photographique nantaise" directed by the association QPN, au Lieu Unique, Nantes (FR); "33-asis Fotomenininkų seminaras Nidoje", directed by Lietuvos fotomenininkų sąjunga, Nida (LT), 2011; "Le Festival d'arts visuels Images", 2010, directed by Stefano Stoll and Raphaël Biollay, Vevey, (CH), 2010; "Rewind" curated by Laurent Fiévet, La Maison de La Vache qui Rit, Lons-le-Saunier (FR), 2010; "Realtà Manipolate. Come le immagini ridefiniscono il mondo" curated by M. Marangoni, F. Nori, B. Rogers, L. Sabau, Strozzina-Palazzo Strozzi, Firenze, 2009; "Hors Pistes" 2009, Centre Pompidou, Paris – France; "Aspettando Manifesta", curated by Paola Tognon, Bolzano, 2008; "A snake on a tree", curated by Marco Antonini, White Box, New York (NY), 2008; "Location1 project’s room" curated by Nathalie Angles, Location1’s gallery, New York (NY), 2008; "Invisible miracles", curated by A. Daneri - R. Pinto, XIII CSAV Fondazione Antonio Ratti, Viafarini, Milan, 2007; "Netmage" curated by Andrea Lissoni and Daniele Gasparinetti, Palazzo Re Enzo, Bologna, 2007.

Moira Ricci