Ephemera / Velum
2016
nylon, led
2 elements: 300 x 160 cm and 270 x 340 cm
Ephemera / Velum is a light installation exhibited as a city luminary for the UNESCO heritage Cavallerizza Reale in Turin.
The installation is composed of discarded nylon protective sheets and scraps of cling film, formerly used as commercial packaging, that bear the traces of the weights they sustained and the forces that stretched, folded, and torn them.
The artist is drawn to the latent beauty of anonymous and seemingly insignificant materials, to which she accords the care usually reserved for precious objects, questioning our value system.
In conversation, she recalls the historical encounters between Indigenous peoples of the Americas and European newcomers, where objects were exchanged according to vastly different perceptions of value. The natives traded gold for fragments of mirrors or coloured glass pieces.
Suspended in space, the almost impalpable nylon membranes move sinuously, almost as if they were breathing.
Their delicate and organic choreography evokes ambiguous and dreamlike atmospheres.
The material’s original associations — utility, consumption, and environmental impact — appear transcended, revealing something which eludes analytical interpretation and asks to be ‘received’ before it is understood.
Installation view:
– HERE, international art festival, Cavallerizza Reale, Turin, Italy, 2016
– Alone / Festival Luci d’Artista in Ombra, Cavallerizza Reale, Turin, Italy, 2016
